


Clarity

by ScorpioRat



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Hinata Hyuga-centric, au Team 7
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-19
Updated: 2017-07-15
Packaged: 2018-08-09 20:18:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 24,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7815667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScorpioRat/pseuds/ScorpioRat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a powerful clan like the Hyuga, only the strongest of hearts survive. Hinata was never strong enough, until a certain person inspired her to keep trying no matter how many times she failed. But what if they had never met that snowy day in the woods, when she was at her lowest point? Hinata is forced to find her own definition of being strong. A diverging AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is an AU story based on a flashback shown in Episode 166 of Naruto Shippuden and in The Last movie. The diverging point is that instead of crying and running from her spar with Hanabi that day, and then being rescued from bullies by Naruto, Hinata finds her own motivation and defeats her sister, regaining her father's approval and her spot as Heiress... for the moment. This changes her worldview and behavior to a certain degree. She's not a completely different person now, as she still feels and cares for others, but she's a little more jaded about how things work. Please feel free to comment and tell me what you think of this idea, of ask any other questions!

_"I'll be strong like my father, and I'll be kind like my mother!"_

Those were the words that Hinata Hyuga had lived by for as long as she could remember. It had started as an innocent desire to emulate the people that her childhood had centered around. But on certain day, that simple phrase she had made up became the greatest goal for her to focus on, a source of clarity. Before that realization, everything had seemed far easier.

She was a happy, soft-spoken toddler, almost to the point of being considered shy, but her parents didn't seem to mind, despite her grandparents' concerns of her being too yielding. Her mother let her wander in the back gardens, showing her the different plants that grew and what they were used for. Her father read her books and taught her to write when he could make the time, patiently guiding her clumsy fingers to trace each symbol until they were memorized. He smiled when she recalled a kanji's meaning. Her father smiled much more back then.

Sometimes her Uncle Hizashi came to visit them, and she would play with Neji for a while, running around and throwing flimsy paper shuriken as they pretended to be ninja. Even at the age of four, her "big brother" always wanted to be a shinobi.

And then she turned three years old. There was a small birthday party held for her, but her father had taken Neji inside towards the end of it. He came back out again a few hours later with bandages wrapped tightly around his forehead and tears of pain in his eyes. The occasion gained an uncomfortable, darker feeling after that, and her uncle left as soon as he could. He was more bitter from then on, and couldn't look her in the eyes.

The next day, her father brought her to the dojo for the first time, with the intention of teaching her how to fight. She didn't question his decision, too excited about becoming strong like him to care about his reasons. Hinata was taught the first basic stances of the Gentle Fist style, and practiced every day after that with determination. Father was proud of her, and the other Hyuga Clan members were pacified by her progress.

Her mother started to teach Hinata other things that had been deemed important to know. She now had lessons on etiquette, clan history and traditions, and other noble pursuits. After being introduced to so many new concepts at once, Hinata finally asked her father why it was all necessary. He stopped their training session and sat her down, and explained, in the simplest of terms, that she was his heir and would one day have to lead the entire Hyuga Clan when he could not. She had to be capable of doing so when it was time to take over as head. His answer satisfied her, even if she had yet to grasp what being the leader really meant, and she continued to run through her stances without further complaint.

That was when it got harder. Her uncle died a few weeks later, after she was rescued by her father from a kidnapper in the middle of the night, and Neji never played with her again. His eyes turned cold, and she could feel the contempt he held when they unavoidably crossed paths. She couldn't understand why he hated her now.

Later, she learned that it was a Cloud shinobi who tried to take her, and in her mind, that village's symbol was tainted with distrust.

The once easy Gentle Fist stances turned into full katas, each one involving countless moves to perform. She was never fast enough to please her father anymore, no matter how hard she strained her limits. Ko, her assigned protector, tried to reassure her that she was only being pushed so she could succeed, but she wondered exactly what would happen if she never got better. What if she failed him completely?

Her mother's lessons became more difficult as well. There were so many rules to keep straight and so many ceremonies and delicate skills to master that it overwhelmed her at times. Her mother was more tolerant of her mistakes though, and willing to correct her every time she needed help.

On rare occasions, Ko brought her outside of the stark, traditional compound for a break, and they would walk around the village streets as he pointed out different locations, like the Ninja Academy and the Hokage's Tower. He told her that she would go to the Academy just like the older children in a few years. She faintly recalled a day when she saw a blonde haired boy around her age, yelling at the top of his lungs about how he was going to become Hokage someday. Ko took her back home after the boy ran off, telling her to stay away from him. She barely remembered his face now, but Ko's warning made the memory linger.

When Hinata was six, her mother passed away from an illness, leaving her one year old sister Hanabi behind. Both she and her father were devastated, even more so than after Hizashi's death. Without her mother's comfort, she grew more timid than before, as if in sync with her father's colder, more closed off personality. Feeling alone and abandoned, she struggled even more during her training over the years. After one abysmal sparring session, he started to train Hanabi too.

The day he had them spar each other was the day Hinata decided to change. It had gone terribly, with Hinata ending up on the cold wood floor, face down after receiving a jump kick to the chest. She got on her hands and knees again, trying to recover, when she saw her father shake his head and start to walk away. She had failed him one too many times, and he'd finally had enough. She could feel the tears rolling down her cheeks, proof that she was weak. Her mother had left her, and now Father was going to leave. She couldn't bear the thought of having nothing, all because she wasn't good enough. She felt like running away, but where would she even go? What would it accomplish in the end? Instead, she shoved that wounded and vulnerable part of herself deep within her, gritted her teeth, and got to her feet to face Hanabi again, the tears no longer falling.

_"I'll be strong like my father!"_

With an unexpected battle cry that made him turn back around to see what was going on, Hinata charged at her opponent for another round. Their second fight was intense, but Hanabi collapsed under her pressure in less than a minute. Hinata stood over her with raw desperation flickering in her eyes, like a candle's unstable flame. The rest of her face was an unreadable mask, just as she had been taught to do, but had never successfully held before. That was the first time she had chosen to bury her heart.

She cried herself to sleep in her room that night, where no one could see it. The way she had attacked her own sister played in her head over and over again like a broken tape. The sight of Hanabi sprawled out on the ground because of her left a harsh taste in her mouth, but there hadn't been a better option.

Hinata steadily improved from then on, pushing herself harder than ever before to get the approval she missed so much. Hanabi was always two steps behind her in progress now, stumbling to equal her sister's blooming talent. Hinata used that same mindset and applied it to her other lessons, impressing the tutors who had taken over for her mother. The hardened shell she had developed to hide all her weaknesses behind wasn't perfect yet, but she found herself giving in to her emotions much less now, and never in the public eye. Father was proud again, along with the rest of the clan, and they often praised her strength now. But Hinata always continued to train, for if she ever stopped improving, she feared the praise would evaporate once again, along with that strength she worked so hard for.

Just as Ko had promised when she was much younger, Hinata started to attend the Academy. Despite her newfound resilience, she was still smaller than the other children her age, so she was a favored target of bullies during the first week. They were creeped out by her eyes and quiet nature, and expressed it by pushing her around when no one was looking. Most of her other classmates completely ignored her presence. Her inability to make friends stung her, but she would never let anyone see it. She didn't need them to be a ninja anyway. She redoubled her school efforts and studied harder, burying herself in books and extra training.

She picked up the Academy's basic fighting style as well, and proceeded to defeat any girl with the misfortune to be selected as her sparring opponent after another six months of practice. She gave the boys a difficult time when she figured out how to merge some Gentle Fist movements into her form, beating most of them reliably once a few more years passed and they lost their inherent size advantage.

Her reputation started to precede her, and the bullies disappeared, afraid of what would happen if she fought back. When she sat at her designated seat, the people next to her scooted away a little. They avoided her like she was a hazard when they were let out for recess. Being alone at break time did give her a chance to practice her weapon accuracy and chakra control more, so she didn't mind. They were just distractions, anyway.

In the years leading to graduation, most students who knew of Hinata were either terrified of her, resented her, or had a grudging respect for the Hyuga Clan's heir. She considered none of them as friends, not trusting them enough to let them beyond the near constant wall she had created. It was cowardly, but she couldn't handle the chance of being abandoned once again. With power and leadership came loneliness, and Hinata accepted this as an indisputable fact.


	2. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm re-uploading this from my account on Fanfiction.net, but I'll try to space it out over a couple of weeks as I work on a new chapter. I'm still open for comments and questions on this AU, however! Also keep in mind that this chapter takes place in Hinata's perspective. What she thinks or how she feels about people are not necessarily true in this canon, or even what I personally believe. There is bias here, is what I'm saying, and that will apply to other character perspectives I switch to in other chapters.

Hinata walked into her academy classroom, a newly issued headband tied around her neck. After passing her graduation exam and returning home, she had a difficult time deciding where to wear it. She usually didn't put such deep thought into her appearance, only worrying about practicality and looking socially acceptable for her clan's standards, but her promotion to Genin was a significant event. This was the start of her official career as a kunoichi, so it made sense to try to treat it as something special. She eventually chose current position, where it would be easily visible. Her clan's main branch members would most likely disapprove of her covering her forehead anyway, as it showed that she was unbranded.

Hinata decided on a dark grey, long sleeved training shirt with a thin layer of protective mesh underneath it, and a set of indigo blue pants. After attaching her weapons pouch and knives holster, she had found an old beige jacket in her closet. It had most likely been shoved into a corner years ago, since she had no recollection of ever wearing it before, or even seeing it. She tried it out on a whim, and realized that it actually fit her. It even had the Hyuga Clan's symbol on the sleeves. Maybe it had been given to her as a gift at some point?

Deciding that there was no harm in bringing it along, Hinata tied the jacket around her waist. It was comfortable indoors, but the village itself was too hot at this time of year to wear a jacket constantly.

When her father had seen it that morning before she left for class, his eyes widened just enough for her to tell he'd been surprised before he fixed his expression again. He returned to his paperwork, mentioning that it had once belonged to her mother. Ignoring his quick recovery, it was strange to see him rattled at all. She hadn't witnessed him with his guard down in years, but that moment only reinforced her decision to wear the old sweatshirt.

Now that she knew how it related to her, Hinata did not let her mother's jacket out of her sight for a moment. She knew it was irrational to cling to it, but it made her feel slightly less nervous, as if she were being watched over.

Much to her annoyance, she was stared at when she passed the front row of desks on the way to her seat. Did everyone forget how they had treated her before? After growing so used to being pushed away by them, she had no idea how to react to being the center of attention like this. Unlike when they were training in class, there was nothing to distract her from it.

Hating the warm embarrassment threatening to take over, she kept her face as blank and disinterested as possible, and stared at the ground as she walked. A few long moments later, and they were back to ignoring her as before.

Now more comfortable that she couldn't sense 20 pairs of eyes on her at once, Hinata opted to sit at the higher up desks in the back row instead of her intended spot in the middle. Assigned seats were meaningless now that they were graduates, and everyone seemed to be taking full advantage of this by spreading out all over the room to talk to each other.

Once she sat down and everyone nearby adjusted their seats in accordance, the room's volume slowly rose to its normal level for when the teacher wasn't present: as loud as they wanted. She sighed and folded her arms in front of her, leaning her chin on them as she scanned the rows below for anyone she happened to keep track of during her school years. She had thrown herself into boosting her class rank so much, that her mind tended to block out people unless they happened to cross her path enough times. At least some of the few faces she recognized must have passed…

There was Sasuke, one row below and to the left of her. He looked uninterested in talking with anyone as well, just tapping a finger on the desktop as he waited, eyes unfocused. It would have caused a small political scandal if the last Uchiha didn't become a genin. He'd have been especially motivated if he took his exam after seeing her pass. Sasuke wouldn't take it very well if the only classmate he saw as constant competition got ahead of him. Being beaten by a Hyuga, the heir of the clan that gained even more power since his own clan's demise, would make it twice as hard on his ego.

Hinata thought of him as good rival as well, if a slightly arrogant one. But then again, that same confidence in his own strength made him all the more formidable. Sasuke was never afraid to look her in the eye or challenge her. He forced her to her limits in weekly sparring and matched her written test scores to the number. And there was a sort of unexplainable thrill at being chased by someone who could overtake her if she gave him an inch of leeway.

Recently, their taijutsu battles were anyone's fight. Even with her unorthodox blend of styles, he could still outmaneuver her a slight majority of the time, and he had been working on widening the gap he had made between them. Over the last few weeks of class, she either tied with him or lost, with an occasional win on a good day. It was both infuriating and exciting at the same time, a reaction that no one else could constantly evoke from her. Sasuke was a respectable opponent...when he wasn't surrounded by a crowd of infatuated girls, or being challenged by jealous boys.

As if on cue, Sakura and Ino stampeded in from the door closest to the back, arguing about who 'won' their race. Hinata suppressed a groan. Sure, Sakura was book smart and had strong chakra control, but her actual chakra reserves were tiny and her physical prowess was near nonexistent. She knew how to throw a textbook perfect punch, but there wasn't enough speed or consistent power behind it to be very threatening. In summary, Sakura was extremely average. Ino was a bit better all around, but her clan's secret technique that she knew was slow and risky without a way to keep the target from escaping, and the Byakugan's chakra sensing vision made it even more ineffective when used against her.

Every other female in class ranked somewhere below Sakura's level in skill, so there wasn't much competition for Rookie of the Year in that area. Hinata didn't have anything against them on a personal level, and she didn't remember them ever bothering her, but it still rubbed her the wrong way seeing people not putting as much effort into their training in favor of trying to capture the attention of a boy. Hinata could never quite empathize with people who pursued crushes. The entire concept seemed more emotionally tiring than it was worth.

After weathering their yelling for a few more minutes, she finally had enough. Her chair pushed away from her desk, grabbing their attention with the unpleasant sound of it scraping across the floor. Hinata stood up and walked over to them. They watched her in confused silence until she stopped in front of them.

"Uh..." Ino recovered first, putting on a smile. "Hinata! How nice of you to join us! What brings you over here?" Hinata narrowed her eyes at the forced cheerfulness in her voice. Hyuga were trained to read facial cues and body language as part of their fighting style, but it just made it easier for her to see how uncomfortable she made people at times. She didn't actively try to scare her fellow classmates, but it always somehow happened anyway.

"Would you mind if I asked you to quiet down?" Hinata did her best to sound as relaxed as possible without sounding weak, but good intentions only went so far. Ino still looked like she'd just been held up at knifepoint. Were they still thinking about last week's taijutsu bouts? She didn't think she was too harsh during the spars, but her standards for harsh were a little skewed. Iruka-sensei ended up telling her to ease up a little during his critiques multiple times. Sure, Sakura was pretty bruised after taking an open palm to the torso, but other than that…

"E-er, of course! We had no idea we were being too loud!" Ino rubbed the back of her head and started to drag a quiet Sakura off to a seat. "We can finish this later, Forehead." Sakura fired back up again.

"Who are you calling a forehead, Pig?"

"Oh, shut up!" They were bickering again, but they were at least whispering insults this time. Hinata watched them sit at separate desks before going back to her own place. The room was fairly peaceful again. Right up until Naruto started bothering Sasuke, anyway.

Hinata was genuinely surprised that the class clown was still in the room. Didn't he fail his test? He hadn't mastered all three of the basic technique they were required to know, at least last time she had seen him in action. It took him two long years to get the transformation technique down, and during their most recent practice, Naruto had failed to produce a single useable clone.

It was sad to watch, considering he used enough chakra to create a whole platoon of illusions if he actually knew what he was doing. It was strange, really. For someone who played jokes and goofed off all day, he had far larger chakra reserves than the rest of the class. Naruto was the only student who could constantly expel enough chakra for her to see without the Byakugan.

Other than that, he was a hyperactive slacker that everyone usually paid no attention to, with grades that were only better than Shikamaru's. And since Shikamaru purposely slept through all his tests, beating him meant nothing much. Hinata only really knew about Naruto because of his constant troublemaking in class. Iruka-sensei chose that moment to enter, reading the notes on his clipboard.

"Naruto! Get off that desk and sit down!" He bellowed, looking up. Naruto groaned and hopped down to take the spot beside Sasuke. The rest of the class settled down after another yell for order. Iruka cleared his throat.

"Alright, now that all the grades are finalized, I can announce this class's Rookie of the Year!" He flipped through the papers he had. "And by a margin of a few points, it's Sasuke Uchiha! Congratulations." There was a short round of applause along with a few complaints as Sasuke nodded in acknowledgement. Naruto pouted and sat lower in his chair. "The rest of your scores, in order of highest to lowest, are posted on the back bulletin board. And now for team assignments..."

There was some speculative chatter as Iruka searched for his list. Some people didn't even realize that teams would be assigned until just then. Hinata did know beforehand, but she had completely forgotten about how genin were divided into squads of three, having been so focused on becoming one first. This meant that she would be stuck with two people in this room until one of them promoted.

"Squad One is..." Iruka started calling out names. Hinata chose to let the subject of teammates go, realizing that worrying about it was pointless. They wouldn't saddle her with an incompetent person anyway, right? Then the entire team's efficiency would drop and they would no longer be balanced as Iruka had said they were grouped up to be. Hinata forced herself to calm down, checking to make sure her expression hadn't changed. A Hyuga never showed their inner thoughts unless they did so on purpose. Soon, her face was once again a perfect mask of indifference.

"Squad Seven is...Naruto Uzumaki, Hinata Hyuga..." What? All thoughts of composure went out the nearest window as she processed what that meant, sitting up a little more. As soon as it sank in, she looked down at her desktop again, glaring holes at it under her bangs.

Why? Why would they do that to her? What was the point of pairing her up with the boy who couldn't make a single clone right? Why not Shino, or Kiba, or...or... Iruka cleared his throat, quieting everyone again. "And Sasuke Uchiha."

Or Sasuke? She looked up just in time to see Sasuke do a complete 180 from apathy to pure shock before he groaned. Well this was an interesting arrangement. "Squad Eight is Sakura Haruno, Kiba Inuzuka, and Shino Aburame." Sakura looked disappointed, while Kiba didn't seem too bothered. Shino was as difficult to read as always. Most of his face was covered, so Hinata had nothing but his voice to judge from, and he wasn't much of a talker. "Squad Ten is Ino Yamanaka, Shikamaru Nara, and Choji Akimichi. Those are all of the teams. Any questions?"

"Sensei, why does an awesome ninja like me have to be paired with a guy like him? Can he switch or something?" Naruto asked, pointing a finger at Sasuke.

"On the contrary, Sasuke had the highest scores in the class, and you had the worst. To make your group even in overall skill level, you had to be paired together."

"Hm...Just don't get in my way, loser." Sasuke said, once again looking straight ahead. Naruto growled.

"What did you just say?"

"That's enough! You'll be working together, and there won't be any changes." Iruka said. "After break period, you will meet your Jounin sensei. Class dismissed." People started to file out, Naruto and Sasuke included, but Hinata stayed put as she tried to figure out the logic behind for her chosen team.

Balance? How was this balanced at all? If their squad was forced to slow down for Naruto, how would they all progress? How would she continue to get stronger? If she wasn't training as hard as possible, then she was getting weaker, and that wasn't an option. Having weakness meant failure, and Hinata was not a failure anymore...right?

A sense of doubt crept up on her, rarer in frequency than it was in the past. She had learned how to shake it off and lock it away, but it was never really gone. If she let it take over, she'd lose all the progress she had made over the years.

Of course she was still competent. Sasuke may have gotten the upper hand, but she could always make up for it with more effort. Adding another hour of practice to her schedule should help. The fresh cuts and bruises on her palms from yesterday's training still stung even beneath the wraps she always wore and the salve she had applied to them, but she could push herself a little further. Her hands clenched before she released them, letting out a slow breath. Hinata got up and walked over to door, intent on sitting at her regular spot for lunch, and then running through a set of Gentle Fist exercises if she had time left over. Any thoughts about her new squad were pushed aside in favor of her comfortable routine routine. All she needed to focus on was improvement. Everything else would figure itself out like it always did.


	3. Chapter 2

"Stupid Sasuke. Why can't that prick get his _own_ team to show off on?"

Naruto picked at his lunch and grumbled as he sat on a rooftop railing, looking over the Academy's entrance. Today was supposed to be awesome, the day he finally started getting respect around the village. He could still feel the relief and excitement from this morning, when he woke up and realized that last night's events had really happened. Iruka-sensei's beaten up old headband sitting on his dresser proved that he was a ninja.

And when he walked outside with it on, people actually looked at him, but not with pity or apathy like before. Their eyes were different now, if only for a few moments. Whether they liked it or not, Naruto was no longer the Nine-tailed Fox, but a Leaf shinobi.

He was going to stop being the class loser, always lagging behind everyone else. He'd surpass them all now, and then they'd be forced to acknowledge his worth at last! But now that he was attached to a couple of prodigies, how was he supposed to look any good in comparison? He couldn't even impress Sakura, because she was assigned with Kiba and Shino. How bad could it get from here?

The school's side door slid open, and he looked down as his second teammate left the classroom. What was her name again? Right, Hinata.

"Hm... What took her so long?" Naruto watched her walk for a second or two before shrugging and going back to shoveling ramen into his mouth. And then an idea struck him.

Sasuke definitely wouldn't want to be anywhere near him, but Hinata never directly fought with or insulted Naruto before. Well, she didn't really talk to anyone in class, including him, so there wasn't much opportunity to be a jerk, but still. Even then, she was more icy and hard to walk up to than mean. There was the slimmest chance that she hadn't written him off, or was at least willing to work with him. It wouldn't kill him to try to get along with at least one out of the two members of his team, right?

Naruto abandoned his half eaten food and climbed back down the building as fast as possible, failing to notice Sasuke leaning on another porch across the street.

"Hey, Hinata! Wait up!" He caught up after a few minutes of running full tilt down the path after her, earning him a raised brow from his target before she stopped.

"Naruto." Her voice caught him off guard. It wasn't hostile, but it wasn't really welcoming either. "...What do you want?"

"I was thinking, since we're on a team and all now...you wanna have lunch with me?" he asked, flashing her a grin. He had eaten lunch with a classmate much, and he had a feeling she hadn't either, so they had something in common. If she was as lonely as he was all those years, then she would certainly-

"No." She turned around and walked away again, leaving him to pick his jaw off the floor. He'd never been shut down so fast in his life. After recovering, Naruto's eyes narrowed as he watched her go. He was going to get to know her even if it physically hurt them both, dammit!

He ran to catch up again and grabbed her shoulder. Hinata's arm twitched, as if about to retaliate, but he didn't allow himself to flinch away as she turned to say something to him. They locked eyes for a long moment, and his thoughts wandered even as she glared at him. Her eyes were actually kind of interesting up close, like those fancy marbles that looked like there was liquid inside of them. Wait, he needed to focus! How to get her to agree with him… As much as it stabbed his pride to say what he was about to say, he swallowed it and continued.

"...Please?"

* * *

How did Hinata end up sitting next to the dead last in the middle of the training field again? Right, because he had said _please_.

It was more complicated than that, but she still given in and said yes in the end. When he had asked that second time, she was fully prepared to refuse again just so she could do what she always did during break period. Alone. After being actively avoided by pretty much the entire class for a few years, she had gotten accustomed to doing things by herself. The concept of someone wanting to follow her seemed absurd now. Hinata wondered if he was just messing with her as a prank. Wasn't Naruto usually preoccupied with irritating Sakura?

And then he was obnoxious enough to _force_ her to pay attention to him. As soon as his hand touched her shoulder, she almost instinctively lashed out with an open palm before she turned around instead. At first, she just glared back, but then she started to look deeper. His cheerful demeanor was gone, replaced by a familiar sadness that was strong enough to make her pause. Not many people were willing to expose themselves like that in front of someone whose entire fighting style was finding and exploiting weaknesses. After all those years of thinking he was just a stupidly optimistic orphan...

Neither of them said a word for what felt like hours to her, until she finally pulled out of his grip and mumbled yes.

The fact that she allowed her will to be bent by her own sympathy like that bothered her, but what was done was done. Emotions were not as easy to crush or ignore as she had thought long ago.

Which brought her back to her current position, leaning against a tree while Naruto sat on the other side, listening to him slurping what was probably cup ramen as she contemplated in silence. She certainly wasn't sulking. This was one of those times when she hated having a soft side. If someone caught her spending time with him and it got back to her father...she could feel the embarrassment now.

"Are you okay?" She hadn't realized that her eyes had closed as she thought, and she was greeted to Naruto's face a few inches from her own when she opened them again. She cut short the gasp that escaped her lips. What happened to respecting personal space?

"I'm fine," she said, pushing him back with one hand. He complied, to her relief.

"Really? Because you looked kinda red there for a few seconds..." Hinata couldn't tell if he was truly concerned, or just trying to make a joke out of her flushed face. She sighed and sat down, crossing her legs to try to meditate. Training in front of someone was not what she wanted to do today, and Naruto would ask endless questions that she didn't feel like answering.

"It's just the heat." After studying her, he nodded before sitting beside her. For a while, silence reigned, interrupted only by the distant sounds of people and the occasional bird.

"So..." Naruto started. Hinata sighed. So much for silence. "What's up with your eyes? They're all...pearly and stuff."

"Pearly and stuff?" She gave him a sidelong glance. Naruto huffed at her jab.

"You know what I'm talking about! They're pale, and I can't really see the black part."

"It's because of my bloodline limit. My eyesight is...sharper than normal." Hinata explained. Had he really not heard of the Hyuga clan's abilities? If they were going to be stuck together, she might as well tell him about the Byakugan, if only in broad terms. Revealing exactly how it worked to a non-clan member was out of the question though, unless it was necessary for a mission. As long as he didn't probe further…

"Sharper, huh?" Naruto said to himself, nodding. "Is it like...X-Ray vision or something?"

"...Partially, but it's more than that." After another drawn out silence, he grinned.

"Show me." She looked back at him, this time with more interest than annoyance.

"What?"

"I mean, if it's too complicated to explain, then show it to me! _Demonstrate,_ " Naruto challenged her. "Unless you can't do it..." At first, Hinata was tempted to just ignore him again. What was the point of getting sucked into his childish game? But on the other hand, if she couldn't back up her claim, it would reflect badly on her reputation.

Looking up at the sun's position in the sky, she saw there was still an hour left for their extended lunch break. Maybe she would humor him for a while, and get some real training in too.

"If you insist, I can prove it to you," she said, getting up. "How about we play...hide and seek? You can hide in trees somewhere, and I'll track you down. Anywhere is fine, as long as you don't leave the training grounds." Naruto was already on his feet.

"Alright! Wait...can I use jutsu?" Hinata shrugged.

"It doesn't matter to me." He smiled wider before turning to leave. Just what was he up to?

"Just don't expect me to make it easy!" he yelled back, and charged into the woods. Hinata waited a few minutes before starting her search, assuming he would need all the help he could get. Confident that it would be a very short game, she formed a single hand sign to mold her chakra.

"Byakugan!" The veins around her eyes bulged as her vision shifted, her pupils changing color from light purple to white. The world turned into shades of black and white, only the flickers of chakra in the air and seeped in the training grounds having any color.

Hinata's vision extended to look deeper into the trees, picking up a much larger chakra signature farther ahead. It was most likely Naruto judging by the familiar outline, and the fact that he was attempting and failing to scale a tree with just his hands and feet. How exactly did he pass again?

But just as she was about to go after him, Naruto's chakra spiked dramatically. In a burst of smoke, a small mass of clones appeared. "Hm...So he can use the clone technique after all." Not that it even mattered in this situation, as the jutsu was easily seen through with the Byakugan. Her eyes jumped from each of the slowly spreading clones. Except now. Every single clone matched the original's appearance, including their chakra levels and internal organs. It was impossible to tell them apart, no matter how hard she looked. "That's not an Academy technique..." It looked like something much more effective. But how could Naruto have come across and learned such a technique in a matter of days? She'd have to ask him about that later, but first…

"Hey! Aren't you gonna find me?" A multitude of voices called out from multiple directions. The strange clones had scattered around her in a short time, and Hinata had no idea which one was the original anymore. Realizing that she was now stuck looking for the equivalent of a needle in a stack of other needles _,_ Hinata condemned herself to searching the old fashioned way, feeling far from intelligent. This was going to take a while.

* * *

Sasuke stared at the classroom's entrance, waiting at his desk for someone to show up to collect his team. Lunch had ended a while ago, and all the other genin had left with their respective new teacher, group by group. Kiba, Sakura, and Shino were picked up by a woman with dark hair and bright red eyes that made Sasuke look twice at her, just to be safe. Ino, Shikamaru and Choji went off with a tall, bearded man smoking a cigarette. The room had slowly but surely cleared after that, leaving Squad 7 behind. Whoever their sensei was, they were late. Three hours late. His eyebrow twitched at the thought. What was taking them so long?

Naruto had long forgone sitting still and was now pacing around the room, grumbling insults about tardiness under his breath. Hinata watched him go back and forth from her position in the back of the room, following their teammate with her eyes out of possible boredom. She was as stoic as ever, unlike when she had first come back from break. Seeing her walking behind Naruto of all people, looking like she had been dragged through the woods, was definitely new.

Come to think of it, today was the first time Sasuke had seen her flustered at all. Maybe she wasn't as emotionless as he had first believed. He filed that information away for later use.

"That's it!" Naruto exploded. "If he wants to be late, then he's gonna get punished, Sensei or not!" He picked up a chalkboard eraser and eyed the door with a crooked grin. "Now if I set this there..."

"Put the eraser down before you do something stupid, Naruto." Hinata said. Her patience seemed thinner today.

"Hey, my pranks aren't stupid! I put a lot of effort into them," Naruto responded. Sasuke smirked despite himself after hearing his complaining. He talked about his pranks as if Hinata had just insulted his museum worthy artwork or something.

"Do you really think a joke like that would work on an elite ninja?"

"Shut up, Sasuke! It would have worked!"

Hinata sighed before perking up and turning to face the door, the blood vessels around her eyes standing out as her irises disappeared. The Byakugan, Sasuke recognized. Her eyes were the only natural distinct advantage she had over him, Sasuke noted. As soon as he unlocked his own bloodline…

"Quiet idiot, someone's coming," Sasuke cut their argument off. Footsteps could be heard from down the hall. Hinata narrowed her eyes before she let the Byakugan fade.

"There's a Jonin approaching," she said.

"It's about time!" Naruto dropped the eraser and waited wher he stood, just as a silver haired man in standard ninja attire walked in. He had one eye covered by his tilted headband, and a cloth mask covered his nose and mouth. The jounin rubbed the back of his head.

"Ah, sorry about the wait, I got turned around in the hallways. I haven't been to the Academy in a while."

"No you didn't! Who gets lost for three hours in a building?" For once, Sasuke agreed with Naruto. The jonin didn't seem to care either way.

"How about we just meet up on the rooftops?" He teleported away, a few leaves fluttering to the ground in his wake. Sasuke grunted and got up to follow. He might as well get this over with as fast as possible. Hinata blinked in surprise at the Body Flicker technique before trailing after him, Naruto running to catch up.

* * *

Kakashi flipped through a book as he stood on the roof, spying on his assigned genin as they sat down in front of him. To be honest, he had no real desire to train a team, but the Hokage had insisted he take one again.

The same thing happened year after year. He'd get recommended to train a promising group of kids, and then Kakashi would fail them for not meeting his standards. And this time, he'd been handed the last Uchiha, the Hyuga clan's heiress, and Konoha's Jinchuriki. If Kakashi did automatically fail them like the rest, he'd get complaints from the higher ups who wanted extra power to showcase for the Chunin Exams, and that didn't even cover the backlash from the Hyuga for not promoting their Main house prodigy.

It was like Lord Sarutobi had set it up like that on purpose. The crafty old man probably did. He hated politics sometimes…

Oh well, he'd just evaluate the genin based on their profiles and performances during his test, and base his decision off of that. If Kakashi claimed they were unfit to become active ninja, no one could argue with the facts and they would have to let him off the hook. And based off the personality and behavioral information Iruka provided, this team was _built_ to fall apart.

"How about you all tell me about yourselves?" Kakashi suggested, leaning on a railing as he slipped his novel away. No one responded at first. Sasuke looked at him like he had just been asked what color the sky was, and Hinata didn't appear interested at all. Kakashi was starting to feel ridiculous standing there in front of them, waiting for an answer that would never come, but then Naruto spoke up.

"Uh, what do you mean, Sensei?" Kakashi grasped onto it like a lifeline.

"You know, what you like and hate, hobbies, dreams, goals..."

"Why don't you show us how it's done? An example would help." Well, at least the Jinchuriki was participating in the conversation. Hinata didn't say a word, but he could tell she was more attentive now. He shrugged.

"Why not? My name is Kakashi Hatake. I like not talking about my likes and dislikes. My dreams are none of your business, and I have many hobbies. Your turn!" His genin didn't find it as funny, but Naruto bounced back the fastest.

"Okay! My name is Naruto Uzumaki! I like instant ramen, but Ichiraku Ramen is even better! I hate waiting three minutes for my ramen to cook." Sasuke snorted, and Naruto stuck his tongue out at him in response before fiddling with his head band. He did that a lot, Kakashi had noticed.

"And my dream is...to become Hokage!" Kakashi raised a brow at his bold statement, but didn't comment on it. So he wanted to be the Hokage? It'd be ironic, at least. "Then this whole village will acknowledge me at last! Oh, and my hobby is pranking, I guess." He scratched the back of his head and grinned. Kakashi sighed. Naruto's maturity level was still low. He'd take a huge amount of effort to get anywhere near the mentality of a chunin, let alone a village leader. Oh well, a boy could dream, couldn't he?

"Well then…next!" Sasuke started his own introduction.

"My name is Sasuke Uchiha," he said in a low tone. "I dislike many things, and there are very few things I like. I have no dream, for what I want to accomplish _will_ happen one day." His words were colder now, tinged with unmistakable hate. "I plan to revive my clan, and kill a certain someone who wronged me." After a few seconds of silence, Naruto scooted away from Sasuke a little. Kakashi made a mental note about Sasuke's apparent aggressiveness when it came to the circumstances of his dead family. It could become troublesome later on if not kept in check. He moved on to the last person.

"And you…?" Hinata had been staring at the Hokage monument since Naruto had finished, only half listening until Sasuke had revealed his ambition.

"...My name is Hinata Hyuga. I like...training and bettering myself. I dislike people who don't try their hardest. My dream is..." She hesitated longer than Kakashi expected her to. "My dream is to succeed my father as head of my clan. My hobbies are flower pressing, and playing string instruments." Both Naruto and Sasuke seemed surprised at hearing the last part, but neither questioned it. It did sound slightly more personal to Kakashi than the rest though. He hummed thoughtfully. At least his temporary team wasn't boring, unlike a few other groups from the past he could think of.

"Alright, I think that's enough sharing for one day. We'll have a mission tomorrow."

"Ooh! What are we gonna do, Sensei?" Naruto was already on his feet again.

"It'll only involve this squad, and I'm running you through a survival exercise."

"A...survival exercise?"

"Yes, but this one will be much more difficult than the Academy classes. I will be your opponent. Oh, and this simulation has a failure rate of about...66%. If you don't pass, I have to send you back for more training." Sasuke scowled.

"Then what was the graduation test for?" he asked.

"Yeah, we passed fair and square! What gives?"

"Kakashi-sensei, is every other team going to take a second exam?" Hinata cut in. Kakashi nodded.

"Out of the 27 graduates of your class, only nine will be allowed to become part of a genin squad. We will meet up tomorrow morning on the 32nd practice field just before dawn. Be fully prepared for battle, and try not to eat breakfast, or else you'll just end up throwing it back up again!" Kakashi said in what could be called a cheerful tone. He gave a fake salute before teleporting away again. He reappeared across the street on top of another building, out of sight from the three he left behind.

From his new vantage point, he could see Sasuke getting up and walking away, and Naruto yelling something at his retreating back. Hinata was just observing the two as they fought, not appearing too concerned with the tension they had. Kakashi shook his head at their interactions before actually departing. If his "team" didn't pull it together tomorrow, they were in for a rude awakening.


	4. Chapter 3

Hinata lashed at the air with an open palm before pivoting on the balls of her feet to attack again, finishing a set of strikes on her imagined opponent. Satisfied with her performance, she reset her stance and went through the motions of a second kata. Each step squeaked on the hardwood floor, one of the only sounds in the empty room.

She would usually be doing harder training than this, but her father had advised her to save her energy for the survival test tomorrow. As soon as he knew that Kakashi Hatake was her sensei, he cancelled their daily training session, which he never did unless there was an unexpected meeting requiring him. She didn't question his decision, but she did wonder why he was so adamant about her resting for what she assumed was a simple drill. Was there more to Kakashi than what first met the eye?

Hinata switched from open palm thrusts to just the tips of her two fingers as she switched to a newer set of movements, though her main goal was her speed this time.

During the introductions, it was hard to get a solid read on him beyond simple surface details, and an elite ninja can give any first impression they feel if they choose to be deceptive, so that was most likely meaningless. Even his physical appearance gave nothing away. He dressed like the average ninja that was a Chunin or higher, except for the face mask and tilted headband. It was possible that he was disfigured in some way, or that he had a medical condition that required it, but he could also be hiding a kekkai genkai or technique that involved either his mouth, eyes, or both. But what kind of eye based bloodline manifested in only one eye? Other than that, Kakashi had no extra weapon holsters or visible non-standard supplies on his person.

She noticed the door slide open and close again, followed by light footsteps that stopped at the raised edge of the dojo. Hinata ignored whoever it was and continued, hands blurring faster as she contemplated what she could do to get more information. If she could find a long enough time to use the Byakugan on him…

She finished her forms with a pinpoint jab meant for the center of the torso, giving a short but powerful yell at the end that echoed off the wooden walls. She fell out of her stance and focused on her breathing as the adrenaline wore off. The clink of ceramic on wood reminded her to finally check on the other person in the room, Hanabi.

Her seven year old sister had brought in a tea set on a platter, and was in the middle of filling two cups while sitting on her knees, just like she was being trained to do. The sheer amount of concentration she was delegating to the task brought a slight smile to Hinata's face. She crossed the distance between them in a few steps and helped steady the teapot in Hanabi's grip. Hanabi made a disgruntled sound, but gave in and allowed it.

"Why can't I serve tea as well as you can?" she asked as Hinata sat across from her, glaring at the platter between them. Hinata studied the set before picking up one of the cups. They had multiple tea sets, but this one was the one she liked to use the most. The teapot's side had a sunrise painted on it, and each of the cups had a different image on it as well. Hinata always used the one with the smaller sun on it, and their father used the fire decorated cup. The other cup on the platter, the one with a set of exploding fireworks, was Hanabi's.

"I think your tea tastes perfectly fine." she said, taking a sip.

"No, not the brewing. I mean the ceremony part." Hinata sighed and set the cup down.

"How many weeks have you practiced it?"

"Um... two?" Hanabi rubbed the back of her neck.

"Hanabi, I've been performing tea ceremonies for six years. You may have set your goals too high. Besides, I had help from Mother at the beginning."

"…I guess you're right. But still, I've been repeating the steps since this morning, and I haven't gotten better at all."

"Hm…" Hinata stood up, taking the platter with her. "How about we do something else instead? You want to enter the Academy in a few months, right? I can teach you how to use shuriken correctly."

"But what about the tea?"

"When you train too long in one subject, it stops being effective. You have to take breaks and work on something else before you continue practicing, or you're wasting your own time," she explained, walking over to one of the doors. "Why don't you get my weapons holster and wait in the backyard while I return this to the kitchen?" Hanabi instantly brightened, standing as well.

"You're letting me use the real ones?"

"Blunted knives are built differently than the standard sharpened knives. Throwing only the practice ones will just hinder you later by building bad habits," she said, only to realize that Hanabi had already left through the opposite door. Hinata shook her head and walked into the connected hallway, entering the central part of the compound. Hanabi tried hard to act mature, but she tended to slip back into a seven year old as soon as she got too excited.

The compound was defined by two main parts, the Main and Cadet sections. The Main building was where all main branch members of the Hyuga Clan stayed, and it was placed in the center of the grounds. The Cadet building was bigger in length and snaked around the Main building, acting like a protective wall of stone and wood. People could freely walk between the two sections, but had permanent rooms based on their clan rank.

Walking through the cadet branch halls always earned her a myriad of looks from the older children and adults, from apprehensive to resentful. They looked away as soon as they thought she noticed. The younger children were more curious and stared openly, still innocent of what tension separated the two branches.

The Main building was an entirely different atmosphere. The looks were approving and slightly prideful instead, as if they had personally sculpted her into what she was now. And in a sense, they had. She squeezed the platter slightly harder than was strictly necessary at that realization, though she wasn't sure why. If being strong was what she wanted, then what did it matter how she got there?

* * *

Sasuke stood on a wooden dock, jutting out into a huge, circular lake. The sun was setting now, and the evening light made the faintly steaming water look like liquid fire. The lake was in the back of the Uchiha District of Konoha, a private section of land for his clan's use. Though now he only visited it for training.

Tomorrow was the moment of truth, the day he'd see how he fared against a real ninja. If he passed the test, it would only be a matter of time before he could get his revenge. He looked into the water, dark eyes turning the same red in his reflection. He glared and backed up a few steps from the edge in preparation. Just one more time and he'd call it a night.

Sasuke's eyes shut as his mind turned inward, grabbing at the chakra he had left. He directed it to his lungs and held it there, rushing through the hand signs now burned into his memory. Horse, Tiger, Snake, Ram, Monkey, Boar, Horse, Tiger. At the last one, he took a deep breath and let the chakra flow to his mouth before letting it go, aiming for the center of the lake. As soon as his breath hit the air, it ignited in a stream, curling in to form a growing fireball over the water. The steam intensified as the fireball continued to burn in place and expand, until Sasuke let it die. Satisfied, he turned his back on the boiling lake to start the walk back to his house. His technique could be better, but it would do for now. And once he got a proper teacher…

* * *

The training ground was silent when Naruto arrived, the sun barely visible above the trees. He hated getting up early, especially after he had spent a chunk of the night attacking a training bag in anticipation for today. He yawned as he walked into the neat clearing. In the area's center were three wooden posts in a row, standing about a foot taller than his own height. The rest of the training ground was a thick forest, with a small pond in the distance.

Hinata was near the tree line, reading a small scroll, while Sasuke was sitting against one of the posts as he sharpened a knife with a stone. He looked up from his work to see Naruto, and made a dismissive grunting sound before continuing his own work. Naruto gritted his teeth and sat as far away from Sasuke as possible. He'd prove that he could be just as "mature" as that smug jerk.

And so they waited for the test to start, none of them bothering to break the silence. Three hours after the planned meeting time, Kakashi finally showed up.

"You're late!" Naruto yelled, standing up and pointing at him. Sasuke stood up as well, and after a moment of hesitation, tucked his knife away. Hinata had switched from reading to meditation about an hour ago, but didn't seem too bothered by the long wait.

"Yes, I'm aware of the concept," Kakashi said. Ignoring his student's outrage, Kakashi took out an alarm clock, cranked the gear inside it, and placed in on top of one of the posts. "Anyway, this clock is set to ring at noon, around…3 hours from now." He pulled out a couple of silver bells from one of his pockets and held them up by a red string.

"Your test is to get one of these bells from me before time runs out. If someone doesn't get one, they don't pass, and I get to tie them to a stump and eat their own lunch in front of them." Kakashi tied the bells to his pants belt loop. "Oh, and did I mention I brought some nice bento boxes for later? Hope you guys aren't too hungry to wait." Sasuke glared at him.

"Telling us not to eat, and then making us sit here to further waste our time and energy...You set us up."

"Well spotted. And for the record, I only suggested you shouldn't eat breakfast. A ninja must see underneath the underneath, Sasuke. Letting others lead you by the nose blindly will get you killed." Sasuke could just tell by the way Kakashi spoke that he was taunting them.

"Kakashi-sensei, there are only two bells," Hinata said.

"Really? Oh, would you look at that, I left the third one at home. Can't go back and get it unless you want to wait even longer. I guess only two of you can pass now." If they could see Kakashi's face, he'd probably be grinning at his own sadism. "At least this'll weed out the worst of you three." Naruto could tell his two teammates were thinking of him now, to his annoyance.

"I earned this headband fair and square, and I'll prove it if I have to! Your stupid bells are mine!" he yelled, clenching his fist.

"I hope you keep that attitude, because you need to come at me with the intent to kill if you want to get anywhere near"- Kakashi paused as an explosion of smoke went off, and he jumped out of the dark cloud to a now empty clearing. "Hm. Smart kids."

"Hey, are we going to fight or what?" Kakashi turned around to see Naruto standing out in the open.

"Shouldn't you be off plotting?"

"Only a coward hides from a fight! I'll show you exactly how I became a ninja!" he said, getting into a fighting stance. If he could beat a chunin by himself, a jounin was no problem, right? Naruto rushed through a set of hand signs, ending in a cross shape. In a burst of energy, four perfect clones stood around him.

Sasuke observed the challenge as he hid in the branches of a tree. He'd never admit it, but he was curious to see how it would turn out. Naruto would probably get crushed in about a minute, but the fight could reveal something about Kakashi's skills. What kind of hand sign was a cross anyway? Did he just make it up on the spot to make his clones look cooler?

"Alright, have it your way then. The first part of the test is Taijutsu," Kakashi said. At least he got to witness Naruto's most recently learned technique. It wasn't every day that a genin passed an exam by learning the Shadow Clone technique.

The four clones charged together and left the real one behind, circling Kakashi before throwing themselves at him with all the tactical skills of an ox. It was a sloppy assault. He ducked a high kick and blocked another. With a single well timed backhand, a third clone tumbled away with a bruised cheek. It rolled to a stop and burst into smoke, leaving nothing behind.

"Wait, they're completely solid?" Sasuke frowned and watched closer. What kind of move was that? The dead last in school could barely make illusionary clones a few days ago. This was…actually impressive. Another clone received a chop to the neck that dispelled it, leaving two left to fight. The remaining clones backed off and pulled out parrying kunai for their second round.

From even farther away than Sasuke, Hinata monitored the fight with her Byakugan, focusing more on the clones and how they worked. They may have fooled her once, but she was determined to figure them out now.

When they were created, Naruto's chakra was evenly cut between them, something that would greatly weaken a ninja after just one clone. The clones themselves were also made of raw, shaped chakra, with nothing physical used as a medium like water and earth clones. It'd be a dangerous technique in the hands of an already skilled person, multiplying their force in an instant. Even if Naruto couldn't use it to its fullest potential, she still wondered how he acquired it at all. He didn't ever seem the type to study beyond what was mandatory.

Kakashi grabbed one clone's weapon and stabbed the other with it, then kicked the first one in the temple. They staggered away and disappeared, only for a fifth person to jump out the obscuring smoke, fist cocked back for a wild haymaker. Kakashi's single eye widened for a split second, and then he caught Naruto by the wrist and swung him in the opposite direction. Naruto landed feet first and threw himself forward, finally getting a solid punch in. Kakashi exploded to reveal a neatly cut log in his place. Something tightened around his foot, and he was yanked into the air and left to hang by the ankle.

"Interesting jutsu, but you need to work on your hand to hand skills," Kakashi came into view as he slowly spun on the rope tied to a tree branch, the blood rushing to his head. "And this is why you never let the opponent get behind you."

"You...you just caught me off guard!"

"Well, you'll have to try a little harder if you want a bell." He began to walk away, and Naruto flailed at the end of the rope.

"Get back here, I'm not done yet!"

"Oh, I think you are." Kakashi teleported away. Sasuke shook his head and moved on from the clearing as well, wanting to keep track of the jounin he was hunting. Naruto crossed his arms and stayed there, thinking of a way to get back down.

"Do you plan on escaping from that rope trap at any point?" He opened his eyes to see from his perspective, an upside-down Hinata below him, looking up.

"Uh…yeah, I'm just…lowering his guard before I strike again!" he laughed as he revolved in midair. She sighed and pulled out a kunai. "Woah, wait! What are you doing with that?"

"Just hold still," she said, lining up her throw.

"No really, I don't need you to"- the rope snapped as the kunai sliced through it, and he fell on his back with a hard thud. "Ow, what's wrong with you?!" Naruto sat up, only slightly worse for wear.

"If you stayed like that for too long, you would have had a red out," she said. "And then possibly died." He blinked a few times as he processed the thought.

"...That's a joke, right?" Hinata was amazed by his obviousness, but decided not to comment on it. She turned around to leave as well.

"There's no point in you trying to beat Kakashi-sensei again, so don't bother. He might do something worse to you next time." She knew it wasn't the kindest way to tell someone to leave, but she wanted it to stick. Maybe, just maybe, he'd listen to reason and stay out of this.

Naruto stared after her, and then rushed to his feet again, cutting the loop of rope from around his ankle and stumbling to catch up.

"Hey, are you still angry about that whole clone thing in the woods?" he asked. Hinata switched to running, but Naruto kept up with her.

" _No_ , now stop following me around."

"I can walk wherever I want. And besides, I want another shot at him." She gave him a withering look before reactivating her Byakugan. Nevermind being reasonable then, she would never persuade him to stay away. He was far too stubborn.

After a few more minutes of running through the woods, she crouched down behind a bush. Naruto followed suit with a tree trunk and peeked around it. Kakashi stood with his back to them a few meters ahead, reading a pocket sized book. Hinata stayed silent as she pulled a handful of shuriken out of her pouch, and crept around him for a better angle.

Kakashi looked up just as the weapons shot out of the underbrush, and he moved to the side, letting them stab a tree instead. Another group of projectiles arced towards him, driving him across the field to avoid them. He heard jingling in the middle of a dodge, and his head turned to catch Hinata making a grab for the bells. He twisted out of her reach and backed off, forcing her to re-balance herself after her over extension.

"Ah, that was pretty close, but now that you've lost the element of surprise, what will you do next? Run away and try again later?" After some deliberation, she took up a gentle fist stance, focusing her enhanced sight on him. "I'll take that as a no then." It was an interesting reaction for a supposedly pragmatic thinker though. What did she have against retreating? "I guess I'll test you on genjutsu next." He flipped through a set of hand signs so quickly that she could hardly catch them, and a storm of leaves obscured her vision. Hinata dispelled the obvious illusion, only to notice that Kakashi had disappeared again. Another scan of the area confirmed that he was nowhere nearby.

"Was it only a distraction?" Before she could even think about why Kakashi would bother with a weak genjutsu just to run off, she was forced to duck under a swing from Naruto. She lashed out at his exposed rib-cage and knocked him aside."What was that for?" Naruto completely ignored her question in favor of picking himself off the ground and running at her again.

"I'm gonna get those bells from you if it kills me!" he yelled, readying another punch. Hinata jumped to the side, and he turned on a dime and came after her again. Hinata blocked with her forearm and dropped low. She swept his legs out from under him with a kick, but he rolled back and landed in a crouch.

"Shadow Clone Jutsu!" Five clones appeared and wasted no time in surrounding her, trying a variety of kicks and punches to knock her down. Knowing they were fakes, Hinata started using chakra backed palm strikes to dispel them. Father always emphasized how dangerous the Gentle Fist was to the body, so she tried not to use the technique on someone she had no intention to hurt. Clones were a different story, however.

She tagged the last one in the arm, but he turned out to be very real, and Naruto full-body tackled her to the ground.

"Get off me!" She squirmed to slip out from under his weight, but he kept his grip in her.

"No, I caught you fair and square! That means I pass the test, right?"

"For the last time, I don't have any bells!" What possessed him into thinking she had them? This was ridiculous. In a burst of strength, Hinata knocked him off her, leaving them both short of breath and on the ground.

The air grew unnaturally warm, and they both looked up to see a large fireball careening at them. Naruto scrambled out of the way and Hinata threw herself to the side just in time to watch it smash into the dirt, making a burning crater before it went out. Sasuke emerged from the leftover steam to face them, holding a kunai in a reverse grip.

"What the hell, Sasuke?" Naruto yelled. "You almost killed me!"

"Move faster next time. Now get out of here, _I'm_ fighting Kakashi now." Sasuke glared at her. Hinata still had no idea why everyone was suddenly out for her blood, but if Sasuke thought that he could just take her out of this competition… She glared back, and her Byakugan activated. He moved first, and she waited until he closed the distance between them. It quickly turned into one of their many academy matches, except this time there was no one to hold them back.

Sasuke's knife passed a little too close to her face for comfort, and she caught his wrist and twisted until he dropped it. Hinata bent over backwards to dodge the right hook from his free hand that followed, and she was forced to let him go. He barely sidestepped a direct palm strike to the shoulder, one that definitely would have made his entire arm useless if it connected. It was a series of close scrapes and near misses, right up until Naruto joined in with his far less predictable street brawler style.

Their duel transformed into a vicious three way brawl. Bruised and winded, Hinata had finally plugged enough of Naruto's chakra network to prevent him from standing, not that it stopped him from struggling to get up anyway. Sasuke was bleeding from the mouth from a wild kick to the jaw had caught him. Too low on chakra to keep her Byakugan going any longer, Hinata let it fade away. And that's when she felt a tap to the back of her neck, and she blacked out.

"I think that's enough infighting for now." Kakashi caught her as she slumped to the ground, and the other two looked as if they were waking from a dream, their eyes clearing up.

"What the- I thought we were fighting?" Naruto got to his feet and looked around as he snapped out of his trance. "Is this another trick?" Sasuke wiped away the red that was about to drip down his neck before speaking.

"It was an illusion, wasn't it?" He felt like a fool for not even noticing, too caught up in the rush of battle to even question his surroundings.

"Yes, and the fact that you both went with it so easily was rather disappointing. With a single technique, I essentially turned you into my own tools to use against your teammate. Now imagine if this was a real mission." He shifted Hinata into his arms, with no response from her.

"I could have easily killed her instead, and then killed the both of you while you were still reeling. And by the time others came to investigate what happened, I could set the scene to look like one of you turned traitor and tried to off the others." Naruto's outrage dissipated as Kakashi talked, and he wondered if he really could be manipulated to that degree. Sasuke tensed at the word traitor and looked at the ground with dark eyes.

"That's the reality of being a ninja. We don't play fair, and if you don't adapt to it… you die." In the distance, the alarm clock rang.

* * *

"Get me down from this thing!" Hinata winced at the sound and woke up again, her back resting on what she identified as one of the wooden training logs. She blinked a few times to clear her blurry vision as she sat up, still sore from whatever had hit her. The sun was high in the sky now, telling her it was already noon. The blue and tan shape next to her ended up being Sasuke. He glanced at her for only a moment, but his frustration was easy to read.

"Quiet, Naruto." Hinata turned and looked up to see her other teammate tied to the middle post, just high enough that his feet were left dangling in the air as he kicked. His arms were restrained at his sides, making it impossible to break free on his own. "Good, you're up." Her attention was drawn to Kakashi standing before the three of them. "Now that we're all conscious, I'm going to debrief you on the survival exercise-which you failed, by the way." Hinata felt herself burn with shame, but said nothing. There was nothing she could add that would make it any better.

"First of all, let me explain to you the meaning of this test. I am a Jounin, an elite ninja. You three are fresh genin. No matter how tough you _thought_ you were in the Academy, none of you can take me on alone. I assure you it is completely impossible. In fact, the distance between you three and myself is so great, that it's as equally impossible for Naruto to have gotten a bell alone than the both of you getting one," he said. Sasuke frowned even deeper, and Hinata looked at her lap.

"But Kakashi-sensei, then how were we supposed to get the bells at all?" Naruto asked.

"Teamwork." He let that sink into them before continuing.

"..Oh."

"You are assigned to teams so you can _work together_ , not fight over mission objectives. If you want to be ninja, you have to learn to get along with your comrades. You don't have to like your teammate as a person, but you must at least respect and trust them. They're the only people you can rely on when you're out in the field. And judging by what I've seen today, I ought to send all three of you back to school for another semester…" Kakashi's tone was colder than it had ever been before, not a hint of joking left. Sasuke was boring holes into the dirt with his glare, probably stewing over the humiliation of repeating the Academy. Hinata was visibly shaken before she caught herself and tried to cover it up. Considering how her clan praised her skill, it didn't surprise him that she reacted that way. And Naruto was of course yelling his head off about how incredibly unfair it was.

"You can't take away our headbands! That's…that's crazy!"

"…Fine." The genin looked up at him again. "I'll give you one more chance. If you mess it up, I _will_ fail all three of you." He tossed a pair of bento boxes to them. "You may eat lunch before trying again, but Naruto gets none of it. That's your penalty. Be ready in 15 minutes." Kakashi disappeared in a swirl of leaves.

They sat there in silence, everything Kakashi had just said still hanging over them like a dark cloud. Hinata reached for one of the lunches on the ground and opened it, and Sasuke eventually did the same. They didn't have any time to waste. After draining her chakra reserves with her constant Byakugan use, eating while they had the chance was the smartest thing they could do right now. And considering how much energy they had spent beating each other up, they had to recover as much as possible. Hinata broke her chopsticks apart and picked at the rice. Her appetite was gone after hearing that speech, but she'd force herself to finish it if she had to. A low growl came from behind her, and Naruto looked away from the bento boxes.

"I don't need food anyway, I'll show him…" His stomach growled again, louder this time. "Ugh…" Hinata looked back down at her food and sighed. She couldn't believe she was about to do this.

Naruto wasn't sure how to respond when two bento boxes were unceremoniously shoved in front of his face at the same time. Sasuke and Hinata looked at each other. Had they really come up with the same idea? Sasuke smirked and broke eye contact first.

"Hyuga, don't give him your food, you've both used more chakra than I have." Naruto grinned as it all began to click for him. Maybe he had misjudged them, and Hinata and Sasuke were okay people after- "Besides, he'll eat it all and then you'll starve." His grin turned into a frown.

"Shut up, Sasuke!"

"Your Fire Style Jutsu looked more draining to me," Hinata countered. "My techniques use less chakra." Sasuke rolled his eyes. Did she have to try and beat him at everything, even sharing?

"You do realize that he can't feed himself while tied up, right? Are you going to let him use your own chopsticks?" Both Hinata and Naruto blushed at the thought, and Sasuke took her silence as a personal victory.

"…I can switch the ends around, Uchiha," she said, though she sounded a little less sure of herself. "We can divide the food evenly."

"Whatever you say…" Hidden in the trees, Kakashi watched from a distance as Hinata separated their portions and Sasuke kept lookout. He reached for the bells attached to his pants and deliberately loosened the strings.

* * *

Kakashi switched places with a log just as the flames reached him, the wood being incinerated in his stead. The fireball faded and Sasuke had disappeared, only to show up again to deliver a powerful kick in mid-air that took both arms to block. Sasuke flipped backwards onto his feet and threw a set of knives. Kakashi parried them with the metal part of his glove, and Sasuke caught one as he rushed forward again.

"Well, you're pretty aggressive. Are you trying to make up for getting beaten earlier?" he asked. Sasuke ignored his question, throwing everything into the fight. "Nothing less from the Uchiha clan, I suppose." Kakashi shrugged to himself and met his every move. At a distance, Hinata used her Byakugan to keep track of the fight as she followed Naruto.

"Are you sure you can form enough clones for this to work?" she whispered. He nodded before ducking out of sight behind a tree. A burst of smoke could be seen, and Naruto moved to the next spot.

"I did way more at once before today. Making enough to cover the field is easy!" he answered, boasting a bit. She double checked the other traps they had set. So far, they looked completely natural. Their hastily scraped together plan might actually work.

"Let's finish up before Kakashi-sensei becomes serious. We only have a few more to go."

Sasuke forced himself to stand again after being knocked to the ground for the third time. He was already tired, and Kakashi was somehow speeding up. If the other two didn't do their part soon, he was going to be in trouble. Something glittered in the sun at the edge of his peripheral vision, and he ducked the three shuriken he had been expecting.

And there was the signal. Sasuke could freely use the rest of his chakra he'd been conserving, and he wasted no time in doing it.

"Fire Style: Grand Fireball Technique!" Sasuke yelled the jutsu's name to grab Kakashi's attention, then released a monstrous fireball, even larger than his other ones. Kakashi backed away as it carved a flaming trench in the earth to get to him. Sasuke panted and dropped to one knee. He was spent now, but he'd done his part.

"Now!" Kakashi heard Naruto from somewhere hidden, and then the woods around him erupted into a ring of smoke. In place of some of the stones and foliage, there were now shadow clones. The small army charged him from all sides and dog piled him. Hinata helped Sasuke up, watching the one ninja crowd's progress.

"Did he get it?" Sasuke asked. Her Byakugan zeroed in on the bells just in time to see a clone tear them off.

"I think so!" The pile suddenly exploded as Kakashi tore his way out, but one Naruto had something shiny in his hand.

"Ha, we got them! Take that, Kakashi-sensei!" he said, standing up and lifting the bells above his head. The rest of the clones disappeared. Kakashi straightened his flak jacket before looking at them, and for once he seemed genuinely pleased. But then the look in his single visible eye changed.

"Good job Naruto, you pass. But..."

"But what, Sensei?" Naruto asked, his enthusiasm dampened. Sasuke watched the man closely, already suspicious of what he was planning.

"Who are you going to give the other bell to? There's not enough for all three of you."

"Uh..." the training ground was quiet, no one sure what to say. Naruto looked at the bells in his hands and then back at Hinata and Sasuke, still standing at the other end of the field. He had to chose? They hadn't even thought about this possibility.

Sasuke was a huge jerk, always making him look bad in school, and Hinata hadn't even talked to him before yesterday. But... they were both good ninja in the end, and neither of them really deserved to be sent back to the Academy. And when he was tied up, both of the supposedly cold prodigies had risked breaking the rules to help him. Could he really just turn his back on them after what they've done together?

"I choose..." He hesitated, and then dropped both bells on the floor. "Both of them. I can fail myself, right?" It physically pained him to do it after all he had at stake, but he just couldn't be that ruthless. That wasn't the kind of ninja he wanted to be. Kakashi watched him with a new curiosity. He hadn't expected the jinchuriki to sacrifice himself. His file had implied him to be somewhat selfish, but this was a clear contradiction.

"You...you idiot!" Sasuke said, finding his voice again. He sounded more shocked than angry. "Why would you waste your chance like that?" Hinata said nothing, just looking at Naruto as if he had just declared himself to be the daimyo. It made no sense for him to give up being a ninja just to let her and Sasuke pass. He had contributed to the victory as much as they did, and since when did he care about their careers? Shouldn't he focus on himself? Naruto ignored them both, and waited for an answer. Kakashi nodded.

"Your decision is accepted. I'm happy to say…that you all pass! Excellent job, Team Kakashi." He watched a wave of surprise go through all three of them.

"But...but you just said one of us was going to fail!" Naruto sputtered.

"Do you want that to happen?"

"N-no, but still!"

"What was the whole point of this test if you're passing us all anyway?" Sasuke asked. Was this man just toying with them the entire time?

"Well... I think you all proved you could get along nicely, even if you don't all benefit from it. If Naruto had picked one or the other, I would have failed you all for still not understanding teamwork. But today, you're officially Genin." Sasuke let out a sigh, and shook his head as Naruto cheered. He'd normally be annoyed, but if anything deserved celebration, it was probably this. With his promotion no longer on the line, he was one step closer to accomplishing his goals. His clan would be avenged soon.

Hinata watched them with a slight smile before looking down at her own headband. Father would definitely be proud, and after thinking about it, she would have felt the same way regardless of his opinion. Maybe she could handle having two teammates for a while longer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapters after this one will take longer for me to update with, so there probably won't be any more weekly additions, but I will do my best to continue this story at a somewhat steady pace. The next chapter is very nearly done though! And I know this seems to be following canon stuff with minimal changes, but I'm trying not to change everything at once that would not realistically shift in this AU. Things will really begin to divert from here on out.


	5. Chapter 4

Their first weeks as a team weren't quite what Hinata had expected. In the mornings, they gathered in the same field Kakashi-sensei had tested them, and he assigned what he called "training drills". It was mostly tasks they were all familiar with in the academy, such as sparring, martial arts kata, and meditation, but elevated to a more rigorous level.

"Why do we have to repeat this stuff if we already graduated?" Naruto asked, wheezing after a long set of laps around the lake.

"Think of them as...warm ups for the day," Kakashi had said. He still kept his eye on his book, even as he instructed his students. "It's an important habit to continue daily exercises even after you begin taking on missions. They keep all of your skills sharpened on a constant basis, even if you don't think you need the extra training. It'd be a shame if you say, missed with a shuriken just because you hadn't thrown one in a few days. Chunin and Jounin like myself are expected to stay in shape on our own between assignments, so you might as well start now. I expect you three to keep them up even if I'm not here to remind you." Kakashi turned a page. "Now give me a set of 50 push ups, then switch to crunches."

"Yes, Sensei…" Naruto groaned and rolled onto his stomach to get in position with Hinata and Sasuke. The exercise wasn't really difficult, just tedious and draining. Kakashi did have a point though. This sort of repetition was good for building a routine of constant strength and endurance training, and because of that, she couldn't complain. She only began to strain towards the end of the drills, but each day, she did find herself lasting longer.

At midday, they were permitted an hour's break, and then Kakashi-sensei led the squad to the Academy grounds. After years of attending school, the large building was familiar to every ninja, but in a locked back room, missions were supposedly organized and assigned. She'd never been allowed inside to see it before then, and knowing that the Hokage would be there to oversee everything had put her on edge the first few times.

Hinata had seen the Third Hokage before, though it was mostly when he was discussing issues with her father at the clan compound or giving a speech to the academy students. Even after reading of his exploits in history books, it was difficult to connect the Third Hokage's quiet, grandfatherly disposition with the ninja who was once called the God of Shinobi, teacher of the Sannin and survivor of two world wars. But she could see the genuine respect in her father's eyes, and the effect the Third Hokage had on older ninja when he walked into a room.

She couldn't admit it, but she was intimidated by that kind of reputation. Yet Naruto and Sasuke didn't seem shaken in the slightest when they entered the open hall and approached the banner decorated assignment tables. Had they met with the Hokage before? By the time they had actually reached the desk, Hinata was so stiff that the Hokage had laughed and told her to stand down. She could already tell that Sasuke would not let her forget it anytime soon.

As they left the room with a D-rank mission, she put aside her mortification to ask her teammates about their complete lack of reaction.

"Huh? I see the old man all the time." Naruto shrugged, to her further amazement. "He's not that scary."

"We've spoken a few times…" Sasuke's eyes were on the ground as he talked. Whatever relationship he had with the Third Hokage, it was certainly different than Naruto's, but Hinata didn't push him to say more.

Their first D-rank mission was almost too simple. Calling it a mission at all was generous, and as Naruto had complained as they rebuilt a local farmer's fence, more like doing someone's chores. They did at least one per afternoon, and each D-rank task was just as actionless and menial as the last one. At least they earned some money for their effort, even if she came home covered in paint, scratches, or dirt from hours of whatever had been assigned. Though the sheer boredom of babysitting, farming, and locating lost pets did entice the three into finding ways to make them a little more interesting.

Burning dead wood became target practice for fireballs and explosion tags. Finding stray dogs was turned into an exercise of stealth and tracking. And every repetitive labor somehow ended up as a race to finish their section first, though the client was not happy when Sasuke and Naruto pulled up a flower bed instead of weeds in their rush to finish.

"I can't believe she made us replant her whole garden…" Naruto was smudged with potting dirt, covering his hands and clothing. Sasuke was almost as dirty as he was.

"I still won," he said.

"Yeah, well… my clones fixed everything like five times faster than you did!"

"When they weren't trampling all over the rest of the yard." Kakashi shook his head as he walked behind them, and Hinata was glad she had stayed out of that particular contest. It was bad enough she had to help clean the mess up, though it did remind her of the garden her mother kept. She hadn't visited it in a while since graduation, now that she thought about it...

* * *

It was two weeks into the new routine when Kakashi began to leave their training sessions early.

"But how are we supposed to see our mistakes if we're doing something incorrect?" Hinata asked.

"Use each other. You three are a team, surely one of you can act as a spotter. Use this time and your own strengths to fill in any holes you see in your skillsets." Kakashi tucked his book away. "For example, Naruto's chakra control is less than ideal."

"Hey!" Naruto dropped the leaf he had been trying to stick to his forehead with chakra. "I'm way better than I was before!"

"Not by much. You should be able to stick more than one leaf to yourself with ease by this point. What I'm trying to get at is that you have two other team members who could assist you."

"Wait, you want us to teach him?" Sasuke asked. "Aren't _you_ the teacher here?"

"Yes, but the lesson I'm teaching is teamwork, not academy skills." Sasuke grumbled.

"I'm not seeing how this isn't a huge waste of time…"

"It builds camaraderie, and it also makes you familiar with what everyone on the team has to offer. And...If I think you three have improved enough, I'll see if I can find a new technique for me to pass on. How does that sound?" A new technique? Naruto's eyes lit up.

"Oooooh, is it a cool one, Kakashi-sensei?" Kakashi shrugged.

"Hmph. I guess that's more fair."

"Good, I'll see you this afternoon then. Don't burn yourselves out practicing now!" He teleported away, and Sasuke turned his attention on Hinata.

"Hyuga, you should fix his chakra control."

"W-what?" Hinata looked from Sasuke to Naruto and back again. "Why should I do it?"

"I thought your clan was good at chakra control and manipulation. Are you saying you can't at least get him to be decent at it?" Hinata knew he was just baiting her into agreeing, but she couldn't back down from it either. That'd be insulting her own skills, though she didn't think being great at something made someone an instructor.

"Come on, think of the jutsu, Hinata!" Naruto said. She couldn't believe that he actually looked excited at the prospect of being taught by her. Her mouth was a thin line as she debated it, and then she gave in, to her chagrin.

"I'll attempt to help you, but there's no guarantee it'll work if you don't listen to what I tell you." Naruto grinned.

"Alright! So what do I do first? It was always really boring just sitting around and spinning leaves in the Academy."

"You're going to sit down and float leaves more," Hinata said, not even hesitating. He groaned, and she gave him a sharp look. "There's no getting around hard work, no matter how much you complain about it."

"Yeah yeah, there's no easy path…" he said, and Hinata was amazed he bent so quickly. For a moment, Naruto looked serious. "I can't be Hokage if I skip the tough training." Sasuke almost snorted.

"Hokage.." he mumbled, before going to start a set of kata. But Hinata was frozen in place after hearing his declaration. Hadn't she heard that before from someone? She'd never really paid Naruto much attention back in school, but it reminded her of something from long ago. The memory was too faded for her to recall.

"Hinata? You still there?" She blinked and realized Naruto was staring at her.

"I'm fine, you can start the exercise now," she said. The moment was over. Hinata activated her Byakugan with a single handsign. "This time, I'll be watching to see where you're having issues." Naruto fidgeted under her staring, but grabbed a leaf and started working. The rest of the morning was spent correcting Naruto's mistakes as he made them, slowly guiding him by trial and error to the correct technique.

Over the next few days, Sasuke began to spar more with Naruto, claiming that his taijutsu was sloppy and he refused to be dragged down by it. It sounded significantly less caring when worded that way, but Hinata did catch him stopping to adjust Naruto's punches and kicks, even as they fought.

And he was really improving, at an unexpected rate too. There was something Hinata found satisfying about seeing someone who was dead last turn into something salvageable with intense training.

At this rate, she'd no longer have to be concerned that Naruto would immediately die as soon as he left the village gates.

* * *

Naruto swung his fist, and Sasuke tilted his head to avoid it, only for the punch to change directions and become a vicious elbow strike. Sasuke caught it with his forearm and pushed it aside, and Naruto backed off with a few strategic hops. They were both sweating and huffing, but neither was really injured from their latest bout.

Over the last two weeks, Sasuke's "lessons" in taijutsu with Naruto had turned into a genuinely interesting set of matches. Naruto didn't quite fight like a textbook academy student, but his attacks had a better, more efficient form to them now that they'd been corrected by various beatdowns and instruction, and combined with his ability to find a way to hit someone from what felt like any angle, he was slowly but surely becoming a threat. And even if his skills were less sharp than Sasuke's, his stamina was endless, and he'd just keep going even after being bruised and knocked down.

"One more round, I almost got a point that time!" Naruto said, already catching his breath. The corner of Sasuke's mouth turned up, and he nodded. He actually wasn't finding it tedious to fight him now, something he'd never have admitted just a month ago.

"If you think you're up for it…" At those words, Naruto settled into his relearned stance, and then he paused.

"Wait…" Naruto looked around the training field, and Sasuke got out of his stance as well.

"What?"

"I just realized Hinata still isn't here yet."

"...I guess that is weird," Sasuke said. Hinata was either early or exactly on time to their morning training, and he'd switch between fighting her or Naruto over the course of the morning. She refused to spar with Naruto in an actual match, no matter how much their teammate bothered her over it, yet she still helped him in any other area, including monitoring his chakra control progress.

Her being late was strange, but Sasuke had attributed it to a one time fluke and assumed she'd turn up soon. Judging by the sun's position, that was a whole two hours ago, long after their daily exercises had been completed.

"You think something happened to her?" Naruto asked.

"Like what? The village isn't dangerous."

"Maybe...uh…" Naruto scratched his cheek as he thought, and then his eyes lit up again."Maybe she got sick!"

"She was fine yesterday, don't you remember?" Sasuke went to grab his water canteen as Naruto deflated a little.

"Well aren't you at least interested in why she's not here?"

"She's not my responsibility, Naruto. She's probably at home, busy with something." Being from the Hyuga Clan most likely required training beyond the average ninja, just like his own father had taught him outside of school.

"We should go to her house and see if she's there!" Sasuke almost spat his water out as he tried to drink. Instead, he swallowed hard and coughed.

"You can't just barge into a clan's grounds, you idiot. You'll get removed if you don't have any business there." All reason seemed to go in one ear and out the other as Naruto continued on, clearly stuck on this new idea.

"We can say we're her teammates, and then maybe they'll let us in! Or tell us what happened. Come on, it's better than just waiting and wondering…"

"...Fine, if you're that determined. I bet you don't even know where the Hyuga Compound is." Naruto opened his mouth, and then closed it again with a grin.

"Yeah, you've got me there." Sasuke could feel the beginnings of a headache.

"I guess I _have_ to come now, or else you'll get lost in the residential district for the rest of the day."

Naruto stared at the building Sasuke had led him to, not even sure what to focus on first. It was like...at least 100 times bigger than his own apartment.

"So this is where Hinata lives?" he asked, trying to take it all in at once. Sasuke nodded, though he was much more tense now, his gaze focused on the gates ahead and the doors beyond them.

The Hyuga compound was built like many of the older structures of Konoha, constructed of stone and the ever plentiful wood in the Land of Fire region. The wall around the entire property stretched out of view as it turned a corner, made of solid, pale bricks. The family name was carved near the front gates and over the building's entrance itself in well defined kanji. It had slanted, ceramic tiled rooftops of a darker brown color, and the foundation was made of cut, pale blue stone, accompanied by wooden beams for support. It was two stories high, the windows covered in wooden bars, and the doors set on sliding frames instead of hinges.

There were no guards standing by, or at least there was no one they could see, but Sasuke assumed they didn't need a visible post to watch people through the walls. They Hyuga were probably aware of their presence already.

"Well…" Sasuke stuck his hands in his pants pockets. "You first. This was your idea, after all." Naruto's confidence seemed to have been shaken, but he swallowed hard and covered it up.

"Y-yeah, sure!" He led the way up the stone laden walking path to the doors, Sasuke following, and then paused again on the porch area. Did they knock? There wasn't a doorbell…

The doors slid open without warning, causing both boys to take a step back, and they were met with a taller man dressed in a black set of traditional robes. His brown hair was short and spiked, but brushed back to give it a semblance of neatness. His pupiless eyes were already trained on them, and he frowned.

"Do you have any business here?" he asked, though the neutral question was tainted by the irritation in his tone. "If you don't, I'll have to ask you to leave." Sasuke could guess what would happen if they weren't cooperative, so before Naruto said something rude enough to get them removed on the spot, he decided to take over their "mission".

"We're looking for Hinata," Sasuke explained, making eye contact with the man. He might not have come to start something with the Hyuga clan, but he wasn't about to act inferior either. "We're part of the same genin cell." The man's expression instantly changed.

"You're here for Lady Hinata?" he asked.

"Wait… Lady?" Naruto whispered. Sasuke elbowed him to keep him quiet before he said anything else. Did he not read any history books in the last six years? The Hyuga at the door ignored it entirely, looking conflicted, and then stepped aside, sliding the door all the way open.

"She's occupied at the moment, but if you insist on staying here, you may wait inside until she's finished. Follow me."

"Thanks, uh..." Naruto grinned at him and scratched the back of his head. "What's your name?"

"...Ko," he said with a curious look, watching them enter and then shutting the door. Just in the large foyer, two more Hyuga clan members were stationed near a desk, dressed in chunin gear and wearing headbands over their foreheads. One was busy with paperwork while the other was at attention, but Sasuke noticed them watching as he passed. So they did have guards on the inside...

The inside was also extremely traditional, with beige walls and wooden floors lining the hallways. Only a few side tables, decorative weapons, and wall scrolls took up space. All the doors were sliding panels as well, making it difficult to find them at a glance, but Ko navigated them easily.

A few other clan members crossed their path, looking for only a moment at the unfamiliar ninja before going back to their own business. Eventually, Ko turned into a quieter section of the compound, and ahead of them was a heavier set of shut doors.

"Please wait over there," Ko said firmly, gesturing to a simple wooden bench beside it. "I'll tell Lady Hinata you're here. Do _not_ wander around the compound." Giving them a long, hard look, Ko entered the closed off chamber, leaving Naruto and Sasuke alone in silence.

"Again." Hiashi stood at the front of the dojo, supervising his firstborn daughter's progress.

Hinata backed away from the padded human shaped sandbag set up in the room's center. It was marked in tiny red dots all around the dummy's front, showing the major chakra nodes of the body. Soon, she'd have all of their positions memorized at a glance, but for now, the dots were necessary.

She knew that she had team training this morning, but when her father told her the night before that he thought she was ready for the next step in their training, she couldn't find it in herself to refuse it. She had finally worked up enough speed to start on her accuracy, and she wanted to master it as soon as possible.

The secrets to the 8 Trigrams 64 Palms strike technique were kept within the Hyuga Clan's main family, and passed from generation to generation behind locked doors to maintain its secrecy, along with a select number of other powerful jutsu. The fact that her father had even begun teaching her the preparation work for one of them was a sign of his approval, and she had no desire to lose it.

"Once more, whenever you're ready," he said. Hinata caught her breath again and settled into her regular stance. Pretending it was a real opponent, she glared, and her Byakugan activated to stare at her target. She widened the stance, spreading her arms apart, and visualized the spacing she needed. In her mind's eyes, there were the 8 trigrams, and she was the center. Anything within its range was in her grasp…

The air was still, and then she lunged forward on an invisible signal. Her fingertips touched the sand bags right on the first two marks with near blinding speed. 2 palms. She continued, increasing her pace with another set of strikes. 4 palms. 8 palms. 16 palms. 32 palms… It was a race to hit as many of the points as she could, without repeating one.

Hiashi studied her movements, and as she moved into the final set of strikes, he called for her to stop.

Hinata froze, and her tunnel vision collapsed around her. The 8 Trigrams were gone, leaving her panting in the middle of the dojo once again.

"Once again, the speed of your hands are optimal, but…" Her father touched his chin. "During the last 32 strikes, your accuracy plummets." She looked at the floor, hiding her disappointment.

"I understand." She had noticed it as well, but it always felt worse when someone else said it.

"That tends to be the most difficult section to master. Focus on perfecting the steps you've got down, and study the chakra point locations until they are second nature." The nearby wall panel slid open, and Ko entered.

"My apologize for interrupting, Lord Hiashi," he said. "Sasuke Uchiha and Naruto Uzumaki requested entry to the compound." Ko looked like he expected Hiashi to be angry, but he gave no sign of it. Hinata was less stoic. Just what were they doing? Did they really come here for her? She had intended to meet up with them before they noticed she was gone for too long.

"And what was their need?" he asked.

"They were looking for Lady Hinata." She couldn't help but stiffen as Hiashi contemplated something.

"Hm…I suppose we're done for the moment. You shouldn't keep your team waiting longer," Hiashi said.

"R-right, I'll go meet with them…" Not sure how to react to his odd acceptance of the situation, she brought her hands together in front of her and bowed to her father before leaving the room from a different door. Ko watched her, and then turned back to Hiashi, who was stepping down from the raised platform he'd been on.

"I don't mean to question your decisions, but… did you really approve Lady Hinata as a member of that team?" He looked worried. "Those two aren't exactly… average."

"I understand your concerns, Ko." Hiashi walked past him towards the hallway. "But if Lord Hokage feels that they would do well together, I have no objections. I'm sure Kakashi Hatake is more than enough to handle them and any complications that may arise."

"The-the Copy Cat Ninja?!"

* * *

After gathering her jacket and equipment from her room, Hinata found Naruto and Sasuke sitting by the entrance to the Main House quarters, looking very bored. Sasuke noticed her first and stood up, though she could tell he was agitated by something.

"Are you satisfied now, idiot?" he asked Naruto, who finally looked up from playing with a kunai.

"Huh? Oh hey, you're alright!" Naruto got to his feet and smiled at her. "You didn't show up today, so we went looking for you." Sasuke sighed.

" _You_ went looking for her," he corrected.

"I had an unexpected training session come up," Hinata said, though why Naruto was that interested in her being gone for a few hours eluded her. "It shouldn't happen again. Just follow me out..." Satisfied that he had been right in the first place, Sasuke was already walking off. Was it the compound that was making him this impatient? She supposed being in another clan's house, especially knowing of her family's abilities, would unsettle most people to a degree.

"Come on, let's go get a mission already." Whatever his reasoning was, he had no intentions of sharing it, and Hinata and Naruto caught up with him quickly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will introduce their first C-rank mission, and this story's first real jump into uncharted canon territory.


	6. Chapter 5

After Hinata's absence that day, she was back to being early every day they met up. She thought that her father would have disapproved of her teammates nearly barging into a private clan session, but he instead switched his schedule to teach her during the late evenings, stating that he'd rather not interfere with her genin duties if possible.

"Individual skills are always important, but talent can only carry a ninja so far at your current level. Genin should focus on building squad-centered tactics," he had said to her. "We will resume working on your Gentle Fist techniques when you return from missions, if you aren't too exhausted to train, that is." She could tell this was a way of testing her resolve, and she was quick to accept her new schedule.

"I understand, Father." She'd be even more drained at the end of the day than before, but disappointing him wasn't an option in her mind. She would master the 8 Trigrams 64 Palms by any means necessary.

As a month of physical and chakra control exercises, sparring, and D rank missions passed, Team Kakashi grew very used to the pattern they'd fallen into.

"Good to see you're all still working hard even when I'm not watching." Kakashi appeared before them like a ghost, and Naruto dropped the leaves he'd been sticking to himself for the past 30 minutes. She'd watched him make serious progress with his chakra control once he stopped focusing on how boring the activity was, and now Hinata felt that he didn't need her to monitor his practice as closely.

"Woah, you're early, Sensei?" Naruto asked as Sasuke began collecting shuriken from the targets he'd been throwing them at. He was early by his own standards, at least. Their teacher usually only appeared to help get them missions in the afternoon, but it was only mid-morning.

"Hm, I didn't notice the time…" Kakashi shrugged and closed the book he always carried with him, tucking it away in his vest pocket. "I'm here because I have something new for you today." That got their attention.

"I bet it's a jutsu! Did you find one for us yet?"

"It better be worth the wait…" Sasuke said, walking over to join the rest of them.

"Ah, not quite. Since you've all been so diligent, I thought it was time we took on a different kind of mission. I've signed us on to a C-rank."

"I knew we'd get a real mission soon! So what's it about?"

"Patience, Naruto. You'll get the details at the Academy."

"Doesn't a C-rank mean that we could run into combat, Sensei?" Hinata asked.

"There's definitely some risk to it, but nothing I don't think you can handle. The worst to expect would be wild animals and bandit gangs. And if it gets out of hand, I'll be there to make sure nothing goes too wrong."

"What, you afraid of a real fight, Hyuga?" Sasuke said. Even knowing it was just teasing wasn't enough to stop her from responding.

"I just like being prepared. It's better than walking into a situation blindly."

"Sure. As long as it doesn't slow you down in the field…" Naruto interrupted before she could say anything else in defense, oblivious to the tension building.

"Who cares how tough a C-rank is? I'll take on anyone who gets in our way, no problem!"

"I think that's enough big talk for one day," Kakashi said. "Let's go meet our client."

* * *

"Your mission is to escort Daichi Kato and his small caravan to and from his destination, a large greenhouse about two days away from Konoha." The chunin working the mission desk tossed the scroll over to Kakashi, who began skimming it as they were briefed. Behind them, a squad of three other chunin left with an old man holding a bottle of alcohol. "The trade route you'll be taking and any supplementary details should be noted there."

Daichi, who had entered the room shortly after Kakashi's team did, looked like an ordinary man in his late 30s. His dark brown hair was pulled into a short ponytail, and his skin was tanned from travelling. A straw hat hung on a string around his neck, and he scratched the peach fuzz on his chin as he looked at the ninja assigned to protect him. The only thing about him that caught the eye was his bandaged right hand. Even as he scratched his chin with it, it looked stiffer than his left. The chunin introduced them by name, and Daichi gave the group a once over.

"Hm… you guys are alright, I guess…" he said. His eyes never quite lost the lazy look in them, but there was a slightly lopsided grin on his face now. Hinata couldn't really get a read on him at all, but maybe he just had nothing in particular to hide. Naruto bristled at his offhanded comment.

"Who're you calling just "alright"?" he asked. Kakashi quieted him down with a hand on his shoulder.

"A ninja should take things in stride, not fly off the handle…" Kakashi said quietly. Daichi didn't seem to notice the exchange at all, or maybe he just didn't care enough to respond.

"I'll be leaving from the Northern gate at seven tomorrow morning," he said.

"We'll be there on time," Kakashi assured him, rolling the scroll up.

"Good. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to get my cart ready…" With his hands behind his head, Daichi left the room.

"For someone who's paying for protection, you'd think he'd be less carefree…" Sasuke said as Naruto continued to stew. After confirming the mission details, they left the Academy together.

"Is it...normal for a client to act like that?" Hinata asked.

"Merchants like Mr. Kato that travel through Konoha frequently are pretty used to ninja after a while," he explained. "Don't expect to impress them with just a headband, especially on a routine escort like this one. But don't let him distract you from your mission either, okay?"

"Heh, I bet I'll blow that guy away as soon as he sees my skills in action! Then he'll respect us!" Naruto said, drawing some attention from people passing by. Kakashi sighed.

"Naruto, what did I just say? Anyway, we'll be out of the village for at least a week, so make sure you pack enough supplies. You all know where the Northern gate is, right?" They nodded. "I'll let you three go early then. Don't be late tomorrow!" With a lackluster wave, Kakashi disappeared once more. Sasuke followed kakashi's example and turned to walk away.

"Wait, you're leaving already?" Naruto asked, stopping him. "But what about our fight? We didn't finish it today!"

"I'm going to pack for tomorrow. Why should we waste our time training if we're leaving the next day? I'm not giving you any spare equipment if you run out during the mission, idiot." Naruto grumbled as he left.

"He still thinks he's better than me..."

"...He has a point. We really should focus on the mission tomorrow," Hinata said. She had to tell her father she was leaving, and then figure out what supplies she would need. Maybe she could fit in some last minute work on her chakra point accuracy if she returned home early enough.

"Yeah, I guess." Naruto recovered as fast as he always seemed to do, smiling again. "I gotta get one last bowl of Ichiraku in then! See you later!" He jumped above the midday crowds and ran on the rooftops, leaving her behind. Hinata really hoped he didn't forget to actually pack...

The Hyuga Compound was emptier during the day, the majority of its residents out on missions or other business. She hadn't expected her father to even be available until later, but the guards informed her that he was still in his office.

He looked up from the scrolls and papers on his desk when she slid the door open, and she couldn't help but stand up a little straighter when his eyes met hers.

"You aren't usually back so quickly," Hiashi said, his face as impassive as ever.

"We...were given the rest of the day off," she explained. "We have a higher ranked mission outside the village tomorrow."

"Is that so? Then we will postpone your training until you've accomplished it." There was no sense of "if" in his wording. He fully expected her to succeed, and she wasn't sure if that should make her nervous or proud yet. "If you need any specific supplies, ask Ko for them." He looked down at his desk again, organizing his files. "And make sure not to slack off on your basic drills while you're gone, it'd be a shame to see your progress deteriorate."

"I'll keep working on it." After a polite bow, she turned and opened the door to leave.

"Hinata." She froze in place, back still facing him. "Remember that your actions represent the Hyuga Clan." He didn't need to say anything more.

"...Yes, Father." She stepped out the office.

* * *

Hinata spent a couple more hours in the training hall to focus on her chakra point accuracy, and took some last minute notes on the technique scrolls she couldn't take with her. If she wanted to keep up her training, she still needed the basic instructions at least.

When the sun set, she went back to her room to begin packing. Deciding how much and what kind of clothing to take was easy, but calculating how many weapons and tools would be necessary was harder. The Gentle Fist technically required nothing, but that didn't mean she could get lazy and survive a week with a handful of knives. Maybe she should have asked Kakashi-sensei for ideas before he left…

"Big Sister?" Hanabi was already walking in as she looked up from cleaning out her tool pouch, and Hinata noticed the packaged bundle she had. "Father wanted me to give you this," she said, handing it over. She realized it was a new set of kunai and shuriken, along with an extra first aid kit. That was...thoughtful. A soft smile broke out on her face, and she tucked the supplies into her bag. Hanabi looked around the rest of her room, taking in the open drawers and folded clothes on the floor, and tilted her head. "Are you going somewhere…?" Right, she hadn't told her yet…

"Ah, I have to leave on a mission tomorrow," she explained. "But I'll come back in a week." The only times she had left the village before was for certain clan-related meetings with their father, and Hanabi usually stayed home during them. Even with her reassurances, Hanabi still seemed upset.

"You always leave me behind." She attempted to pout, but was interrupted when Hinata rested a hand on her shoulder.

"We can go out on a mission together when you're older, okay?"

"...Okay. But I want you to train with me when you get home again." Hinata hesitated. She really didn't like fighting Hanabi at all, even if it was just sparring, but maybe they could find something else to do together. "Promise!" She gave in.

"If that's what you want." Hanabi was hugging her waist before she could react, and Hinata forced herself to relax, hugging her back. "Let me finish packing up, and then I'll go to dinner with you."

"Alright!" She watched Hanabi go, feeling a little less tense than when she had spoken to her father.

* * *

"Look out world, Naruto Uzumaki's coming through!" The two gate guards tried to hide their amusement as they observed the genin team waiting for their client to show up. Sasuke glared at him and adjusted his grip on his backpack.

"How are you able to yell that loudly this early?"

"If the rest of Konoha wasn't up before...they are now," Kakashi said, leaning against the huge wooden post that made up one side of the gate. Tuning Naruto out, Hinata looked down the dirt path that led out the village and into the forest. The massive doors were wide open for the day, allowing morning civilian traffic to pass through. Leaving the village never felt as ominous before now, but maybe that was just because her position was reversed. Instead of being surrounded by guards, she was part of the first line of defense.

The quiet rattling of a wheel on cobblestone caught their attention, and a decent sized horse drawn cart made its way towards them. A younger man she didn't recognize from yesterday sat on top of it, holding the reins. Daichi followed beside the cart, this time wearing his straw hat.

"Nice to see my bodyguards here early," he said, just as relaxed as he was the day before. "Let's get moving then, I like to travel from sunrise to sunset." As he passed her, Hinata noticed the long necked object covered in a cloth and strapped to Daichi's back with a thick string. She was tempted to ask what it was or check herself, but Kakashi began directing their travelling formation, and she pushed it to the back of her mind.

As the cart itself would take up a fair amount of space on the road, Kakashi divided their team to cover each angle of approach. No one would stand directly in front, as it would draw too much attention to their target. Instead, they'd be stationed near the sides and back, where attacks would be more likely to come from. Sasuke took the left, and Kakashi and Naruto covered the back area, leaving the right side to Hinata.

"Hey, why can't I handle my side all by myself, Sensei?" Naruto asked.

"Approaching from behind gives an enemy the most advantage, so having two people ready doubles our defense. But don't worry about me stealing your spotlight, I'll be watching from inside the caravan." Naruto seemed to accept that reasoning.

"...Okay, but I'm gonna handle any fight before you even get to step in!" Kakashi was already sitting on the back of the cart, reading his book.

"That sounds fair." She was starting to think their teacher just didn't want to walk all day like the rest of them…

They traveled for a few hours without much interruption, passing some scattered sentry posts hidden in the taller trees where other ninja watched the road. Once they got further away, the extra security would disappear, and they'd be in what travelers called "no man's territory".

Criminals and rogues preyed on people unchecked in between towns, though they kept a wide distance from Konoha's walls. Hinata remembered how their behavior was explained in the Academy. Konoha made sure to defend its own claimed territory from encroaching bandits, but extending their protection too far beyond their borders would start damaging their manpower and economy. If ninja went out of their way to eliminate every criminal they came across, the number of escort and protection missions needed across the Land of Fire would plummet, creating a loss of profit. The only targets that were considered important enough to attack on sight were defective Konoha ninja. It wasn't exactly a noble practice, but it was necessary to keep the village funded.

By around midday, their group had put enough distance between themselves and Konoha's gates for their mission to really begin.

"Hinata, how much distance does your Byakugan cover?" Kakashi asked during their short lunch break.

"Around 60 meters at maximum," she said. The Byakugan was capable of seeing much farther than that, but her own wasn't powerful enough to match someone who'd been using theirs for years.

Kakashi hummed to himself, leaving her to wonder what he was planning. "I want you to start scanning our perimeter from here on out. Not constantly, but once every ten minutes or so. Can you do that?" She tried to look as professional as possible. If Kakashi-sensei was trusting her with directly watching their surroundings, she didn't want him to think she wasn't taking it seriously.

"I can handle it." He seemed happy with her response, at least.

"That's good. We'll be counting on you." He turned to the rest of the team. "And as for you two." Naruto and Sasuke looked up at him. "If Hinata gives the signal, get ready to fight. Just… don't be too obvious about it." Sasuke nodded and pulled a knife out his holster to store in a different place.

"But what's the signal?" Naruto asked.

"I'll show you in a moment, just make sure you're ready for it."

* * *

The second half of the day went by almost as uneventful as the first. They passed a couple of civilians going in the other direction and saw a lone deer bound across the road, but it was otherwise a clear path. Following her new orders, Hinata watched the surrounding forest with her Byakugan every ten minutes, though she'd gotten strange looks from the cart driver the first few times. It reminded her of some of the comments she'd gotten during first year of school, and she did her best not to react to his glances. He wasn't making fun of her, and she wasn't six, so it was silly to feel uncomfortable.

Naruto had taken to speaking with their client, and it turned out that Daichi had a few interesting stories to tell from his travelling. Whether they were completely true or not was debatable, but they kept the journey from becoming too boring.

"...And that's how I ended up smuggling a princess across a foreign border in the dead of night." Daichi leaned back in his seat as Naruto's mouth hung open, captivated. "It's pretty damn hard steering a horse with nothing but the moon to see with, but having an angry samurai on my trail was pretty motivating. Almost ran into a ditch a few times though…" He chuckled as he recalled it.

"You're a pretty crazy old man..." Sasuke said, but the fact that he was listening at all betrayed his interest. "Wouldn't they have caught you eventually?"

"If they really wanted to, I suppose they could have found me later. But then they'd have to admit they lost sight of me in the first place. Samurai are a prideful bunch." Naruto grinned.

"I bet I could do something like that on a mission, no sweat!" he said. Daichi snorted and reached for the object still strapped to his back.

"I don't think I count as much of a princess, kid."

"What's that thing?" Naruto asked.

"Oh this?" Daichi unwrapped the parcel and balanced the object in his lap. "It's a string instrument called a guitar. It's foreign." Hinata finished her latest scan around the area, and her Byakugan sight drifted to Daichi, curious to see what he was talking about. The long neck and rounded body shape reminded her of the shamisen she had at home, except the guitar was larger and thicker with more strings. Did it work just like a shamisen too? She wanted to ask about it, but… Kakashi-sensei gave her a duty. Maybe she could approach Daichi tonight when they stopped…

As Daichi continued to talk about the guitar, she was about to turn her Byakugan off for another ten minutes when a flicker of movement grabbed her attention. Hinata paused for a split second as she tried to pinpoint the source, and then she found it.

Acting as calm as she could, Hinata knocked on the side of the cart three times. Daichi stopped speaking to glance at her, and then continued on. Kakashi melted into the shadows in the back of the cart without a word. The air was tense for what felt like minutes as they waited, and then three small, round packages rolled out of the bushes towards the cart, fuses lit.

The merchant cursed, and then the smoke bombs went off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally got this mission started, so hopefully, the pace will pick up a little more. There will be no journey to the Land of Waves, but I will say there may be consequences to that down the line. Feedback is appreciated!


	7. Chapter 6

Naruto had no time to react beyond getting in front of Daichi when the wave of smoke obscured his vision of the treeline. The horse reared up, but the cart driver was disciplined enough to rein it back in before it could bolt away. He strained to make anything out in the darkness as footsteps and shadows surrounded the group, and then something large emerged right in front of him.

The bandit was huge, dressed in slightly ragged clothes that hugged his muscular frame. There was a hungry look in his eyes as locked on to Naruto, and he raised what looked like a repurposed tree cutting axe over his head. The blade was uneven and chipped at the edges, and even as he screamed at himself to do something, Naruto's body locked up at the sight of the man running towards him. Why wasn't he moving?

No, he couldn't die like this… The bandit was about three feet away from burying his hatchet into Naruto when a group of shuriken dug into his arm. Naruto came out of his trance as the axeman winced in pain, stumbling to the side before regaining his focus.

"I'm gonna cave your head in, brat..." he growled, yanking the shuriken out with a few drops of blood. Naruto grinned back and made a hand seal.

"Shadow Clone Jutsu!" He created two of them, and they jumped onto the axeman's arms, forcing him to drop his weapon. Naruto followed them up with a punch to the gut. He bent over and wheezed, and Naruto uppercutted him with an audible crack on impact. He fell over backwards, and Naruto's two clones continued beating him until he stopped moving. Naruto cracked his knuckles as they dispelled, and then turned back to Daichi. "Hey, get in the cart until we're done!" he yelled. Daichi, looking stunned for the first time, nodded and went to hide.

Naruto threw himself at another bandit with a new sense of confidence, summoning more clones to take away his pitchfork while he jump kicked the man into a nearby tree trunk hard enough to shake the branches. He worked his way through two more bandits, and then watched as a third one tried to draw a sword on Hinata further off. Her eyes were completely white as she seemed to be glaring through the man, and she pushed the swing aside with an elbow to deliver a two handed palm strike to his open chest. He could see a spurt of chakra come out when she made contact, and the bandit took a few shaky steps back to cough up some blood. Hinata looked hesitant for a moment, but her expression hardened again. He collapsed to his knees as she slid into a more proper stance, and then knocked him out with a punch to the temple. He joined the two other men on the ground in different states of injury.

"Pay attention!" Sasuke yelled, and Naruto turned around in time to see him slide into the legs of a bandit, knocking him down. Sasuke flipped back onto his feet and got behind the man fast enough to slam the back end of his kunai into his head. He crumpled to the ground again. "You'll die if you stand there doing nothing," he continued, before leaving to chase another shadow down. Naruto followed with a growl, determined to show that he was just as good as him.

Another minute was all they needed to defeat the ambush, and Naruto was helping to drag the unconscious bodies in a pile when Kakashi jumped down from the cart.

"Nice job, team," he said walking over to inspect the bandits. "Once you got over the stage fright, you pulled it together." Kakashi picked up the bloody shuriken that had stopped the axeman, and Naruto tried not to look guilty. As far as he knew, Sasuke and Hinata didn't freeze up and need their sensei to snap them out of it. "There's eleven here. Hinata, how many did you see?"

"I thought there were twelve in the forest…" she said. "But there's no one left nearby."

"Hm, he probably abandoned the rest, but I doubt he'll try to attack us again after seeing what happened the first time." As he pulled out some rope to restrain the bandits and Daichi checked the cart over for any damage, Naruto stuck his hands in his pockets and kicked at a stone in the road, frowning to himself. First Iruka-senshi, then Kakashi-sensei, and now Sasuke. He was never gonna hesitate and make someone have to save him again…

* * *

 

When the bandits were tied up for the local law enforcement, the group traveled down the road another few hours until the sky began to dim. Kakashi scouted out a clearing not far away from their path, and they guided the cart there to make camp. Daichi's driver disconnected the horse to take care of it while everyone else settled down.

Hinata busied herself with digging a pit for the fire, leaving Sasuke to set up the tents and Naruto to find some wood to burn. He looked like he'd been sulking about something for the last few hours, so she didn't stop him when he volunteered for the job. It was strange for him though, and it was beginning to bother her. They'd won the fight, so what was wrong with him?

Naruto mostly returned to his normal self after dinner, so she let it go without bringing it up. Instead Hinata checked herself over for any hand injuries. Her knuckles stung a little, but that was expected after punching someone's skull. There had probably been a more efficient way to knock him out than that, but after seeing his reaction to her Gentle Fist hit to his lungs, she'd been thrown off. She knew all about the theory of what damage to the chakra network did to nearby organs, but to see it in action was… unnerving. She'd always taken her father's warnings about using the Gentle Fist seriously, but now it held more weight. She could have very easily killed someone today, and she wasn't sure how much control she had with her strikes in the heat of the moment.

Hinata wasn't exactly against fighting. If anything, she got too into training at times, pushing herself beyond was was strictly necessary just because she could, but she didn't think of herself as bloodthirsty. Okay, maybe she'd frightened a few people back in the Academy after breaking a training post with an over-enthusiastic chakra strike, but that was accidental. There was a difference between going all out in a sparring match and ending someone's life.

She was sitting by the fire, debating whether to wrap her hands up with tape to protect them better, when Daichi sat down across from her. He was holding the guitar again, but he looked frustrated as he tried turning the knobs on it with his bandaged hand. Maybe now was a good time to talk to him. It would at least keep her mind off potential murder better than she was faring now.

"Do you… need help with that?" He stopped struggling with his instrument and looked at her.

"Huh?" She was probably going to regret this later.

"I...you looked like you were having trouble…" she explained. He raised a brow, and she looked away from him, already feeling stupid. There was a long, excruciating pause.

"...You know how a guitar works?" he asked..

"I've played things like it before." He looked down at his guitar, and then back at her, his gaze more intense than it had been since the mission started. He sighed.

"Here," Daichi said, standing up to hand it over. "Don't drop it, it was expensive." She took it with a sturdy grip, making sure the instrument was supported on her lap as she sat down. It was a little heavier than other string instruments, but still light enough to carry comfortably.

"I haven't been able to tune it since a thug tried to rob me a couple weeks ago. Lucky he just messed up my hand and not my whole arm…" He pointed at the thickest string out of the six. "The standard tuning starts at low E, and then A, D, G, B, and high E going down the strings." Her fingers tested the strings as he spoke, playing random notes as she grew accustomed to them. A few minutes passed as she checked the pitches by ear, adjusting the knobs when necessary while Daichi supervised.

"Is this correct?" With no pick to use, she strummed the guitar with her thumb. Daichi scratched his chin, eyes closed as he listened, and then he nodded.

"Sounds about right to me." Hinata gave the instrument back, and he tried playing a few different chords before he smiled. "That's pretty good. First time I had a ninja fix my guitar on the road. That's not extra money, right?"

"Uh, no, I was just... I was only curious about it"- He stopped her with a short laugh.

"Don't worry, it's just a joke." Oh. Right… Before she could get too embarrassed, Naruto abandoned his argument with Sasuke over whether the tents were assembled right and joined them.

"Hey, are you gonna play something now?" he asked, sitting beside Daichi with a hopeful look.

"Nah, we were just tuning it. Maybe tomorrow I'll practice a song. Besides, it's probably not too smart to make too much noise at night like this." Naruto scratched the back of his head as Daichi wrapped up the guitar again.

"Yeah, I guess more bandits could hear us…"

* * *

 

The missing twelfth bandit was making his way through the dense woods at a much faster pace than a normal person, hopping from branch to branch like a ninja as soon as he was certain he was out of hearing range. When he got sufficiently far enough, he slowed to a stop, falling to the ground in a three point crouch.

The bandit stood up, glanced around for any witnesses, and then burst into smoke. In his place was a young woman with short, dirty blonde hair and pale blue eyes. The worn down flak jacket she wore and deliberately scarred leaf headband tied to her leg marked her as a kunoichi.

"Kenzou's not going to like this news..." she said to herself, checking the longbow strapped to her back for any damage. She left the treeline and entered a small clearing where a makeshift camp was constructed. The few thugs standing guard straightened up and allowed her to pass through unhindered. The kunoichi ignored the first few large tents where other bandits sorted through their stolen goods and rested, going for the smaller, separate tent near the back.

"I ran into something on the main road to Hanamoto's place," she said, standing outside the opening. She could hear the sound of metal being shifted around, and then silence.

"Come in." She slipped past the tent flap and secured it behind her. A larger, older man was kneeling on a blanket, his light brown eyes focused entirely on the metal club he was polishing. Surrounding him were piles of various weapons, from shuriken and kunai to polearms and swords. His dark brown hair stuck up in the front, but was tied into a long, tight braid down his back. A scar ran up his jaw and onto one cheek, and his short sleeved buttoned up shirt exposed arms were tattooed with scrawled writing that formed circles. One shoulder was taken up entirely by a stylized tiger's head, and his forehead was covered with his own scarred leaf headband. "What did you find, Haruka?"

"A merchant bought some Konoha ninja along with him, and it looks like a full genin squad with a jounin as leader." The man's jaw clenched, and he looked up at her.

"And the rest of your patrol?" he asked.

"Either captured or dead. I left before they could realize I was even there."

"How unlucky, but at least it's not a surprise now. They'll probably stay around the greenhouse until the merchant leaves again. We can't afford to wait that long…"

"That's what I was afraid of. Should we postpone the operation?" Kenzou looked conflicted, and then shook his head.

"No, I'll find a way to work around it." He stood up and moved to grab a map from a nearby bag. "Get some scouts and set yourself up around the property, but don't approach the ninja. We'll watch them and see if we find an opening in their defense. If we have to do a quick raid, then we will, but I'm not facing a Jounin on even ground if I can help it." Haruka nodded.

"Right, I'll tell the men the change in plans." She turned to leave as Kenzou began marking on the map with a pencil, talking under his breath.

* * *

 

The second day of travelling was much less exciting. They kept the same formation as they moved, with Kakashi once again riding inside the caravan. Anyone that came close enough to attempt to steal from them lost interest as soon as they realized who was guarding the cart, and Hinata only got to watch them turn and run in the opposite direction with her extended sight. Either the bandits here were smarter, or they were warned of the presence of ninja on this particular trade road.

It made the journey feel significantly slower though, even after Daichi began to play a melody from the back of the cart. After hours passed, Naruto gave a loud sigh and rested his hands behind his head as he walked.

"Hey, so… where are we gonna get there again? Anytime soon?" he asked.

"Hanamoto Greenhouse is about… an hour away at this rate," Daichi said, checking the sky. Hinata stopped her latest pass over the surrounding land when she heard the name, an odd chill going down her spine. Hanamoto? She strained to remember the details as Daichi continued. "We'll arrive at the edge of the property around sunset." She nearly stopped in the middle of the road when it hit her, drawing some attention when she had to catch up with the cart.

"You okay?" Naruto asked.

"I just… realized that I've been to Hanamoto Greenhouse before," she said. It must have been years ago if the details were this hazy. It was possible that her father had taken her there on some kind of business for the clan. But why was it making her feel uneasy?

"That's not surprising," Kakashi said. "Most larger clans in the village have business ties with outside resources, or at least make deals through the village itself."

"What do they need to make deals for?"

"It's usually for discounts on raw materials or refined products, like medical herbs or weapons. A clan will make an agreement to come to the aid of an outside business if requested, and in return, the business will sell to them at a discount. Konoha buys the materials for medicine and supplies in bulk this way, and then we run some missions involving the companies at a reduced price in return."

"So it's really just a bunch of favors? It's not that complicated!"

"Well, that's one way of phrasing it." Sasuke shook his head.

"Your grasp on economics is really impressive for a guy who was struggling to count up enough money for two bowls of ramen," he said.

"Hey, I had a coupon! I can't just do 55% off in my head…"

"That's basic math." Hinata ended up ignoring Naruto as he tried to persuade Sasuke that percentages were not basic arithmetic skills, trying to remember more about her trip to Hanamoto Greenhouse. She was sure it was around 4 years ago now. Father was arranging a shipment of seeds for some of the gardens in the compound, a deal that was most likely still going on now. And yet she felt like she was forgetting something really important...

* * *

 

"I can see the gates up ahead," the cart driver announced. He slowed the horse as they approached, and Kakashi was out near the front of their group in what felt like an instant, as if he hadn't been reading for the last few hours. Hinata had spotted the greenhouse from a distance with her Byakugan already, but seeing it up close made it feel even larger.

Hanamoto Greenhouse was more like an indoor farm, with a massive collection of glass buildings surrounded by sweeping fields of different flowers and plants. All of it was contained in a well maintained chain gate, and there were civilian guards posted around it as an extra measure. She couldn't help but stare as they reached the front entrance, wondering how many different varieties she could make out from where she was. How much work did it take to maintain so many plants? Naruto was openly gaping at the fields as well, and even Sasuke looked shocked.

"Made it in one piece," Daichi said, hopping onto the ground when the cart stopped. He spoke to the guard for a minute, and then the solid wood gates creaked open to let them through. An older man and a younger boy were waiting on the other side. Their robes looked like something the average person would keep in the back of their closet for special occasions, expensive and near spotless. They both had black hair, but the older man's had a slight grey to it.

"Ah, good to see that Konoha has safely brought you back to us again, Mr. Kato," the man said warmly, holding his arms out. He might have been a little dramatic, but Hinata couldn't detect much arrogance from him. The boy beside him, maybe only a couple years older than herself, looked a little bored. Daichi tipped his hat at the man, a genuine smile on his face.

"They always do," he answered, going to shake his hand. He turned to face the four ninja. "This is Ichirou Hanamoto, he owns and runs this whole operation."

"We'll be watching over Mr. Kato on your property until he returns to the village, if that's acceptable." Kakashi slipped into what she considered his professional voice, his favorite book nowhere in sight. As he and Ichirou discussed security and housing, the dark haired boy's gaze fell on her, and she tensed up before she could even register why. There was a spark of recognition between them, and she suddenly knew exactly why she disliked this place in the past. Katsuo lived here.

"Is that you, My Princess?" he asked, loud enough to catch nearly the entire group's attention. With an expression Hinata could only describe as a love-struck smile, he crossed the distance between them in only a few seconds. If she wasn't so stunned by it, she would have considered jumping on top of the caravan to escape him, but by the time she recovered coherent thought, he had already grabbed on of her hands. It took more restraint than she thought she had to not make his whole arm useless with her free hand. She represented the Hyuga clan with her behavior, she couldn't just lash out at a technical client. That wasn't professional.

"Y-your what?" she stammered, blinking a few times. He dropped down on one knee and looked up at her with shining green eyes, her face going red at the sheer intensity of it. Was this a joke? She could see Sasuke trying to contain himself from saying anything out of the corner of her vision, and it only doubled her embarrassment. He was going to hang this over her head for the rest of the mission, wasn't he?

"I have not forgotten the promise I made to you when we last met, and now you've returned," he continued, oblivious to the rest of the world. Wait, he couldn't possibly be referring to when she was 8, right? No one was crazy enough to- "We are truly destined to be together!"

The silence was deafening. Hinata was speechless after such a declaration. Kakashi raised a brow as he watched the exchange, as if waiting for the punchline. Sasuke was practically grinning for his emotional standards. Naruto recovered first, pointing a finger at the still kneeling teenager.

"Who the hell is this guy?" he yelled. Well at least someone was just as bothered by Katsuo as her.

"That's the manager's son…" Daichi said. Ichirou had enough class to try and look shamed in Katsuo's place, but that wasn't helping her at the moment.

"Wait, hold on"- she was cut off as he started to pull her away, going on about a romance that she had no intention of ever starting.

"Uh, shouldn't we do something, Kakashi-sensei?" Naruto asked.

"I'm interested in seeing where this goes," Sasuke said, not having moved an inch even after Hinata shot him a desperate look. Kakashi shook his head.

"Never get involved in politics, Naruto."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't think this arc will last too many chapters, but I'm trying to give it a slightly different tone than the Land of Waves mission in Canon, even if it means the lessons the characters learn from these antagonists end up being different in the long-run. Please leave any comments or questions you may have, especially since I'm going kind of off the rails from here on out. I like having feedback on the more original content so I know how to handle things much later on.


End file.
